Raising Resilient MKs

Raising Resilient MKs:

Resources for Caregivers,

Parents, and Teachers

Edited by Joyce M. Bowers

ACSI

Association of Christian Schools International

Cover design by David Tieszen
Interior design by Elizabeth G. Stout

Published by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI),
P.O. Box 65130, Colorado Springs, CO 80962
Copyright © 1998 by Association of Christian Schools International
Printed in the United States of America.
Reproduction of chapters from this book or the entire book in any
manner for use in education and training, not for commercial sale, is
permitted, except as noted on page 53.

Those downloading have permission to forward the downloaded files
(unchanged and without charge) to others who would benefit from the
content.

Please do NOT post this book anywhere else on the Internet.

TO THE MEMORY OF

Margie Bowers

My sister-in-love

1952-1977

J.M.B.

v

Contents

Forward--Robertson McQuilkin ................................................. xi
Preface--Joyce M. Bowers ......................................................... xiii

I: Historical Perspective

1.

Looking Back, Pressing Forward: The Legacy of the

ICMKs--Joyce M. Bowers .......................................... 2

2.

ICMKs in Perspective: Deacons for the 21

st

Century--

Ted Ward .................................................................. 11

II: MKs, TCKs, and the Body of Christ

Resolutions from ICMK Nairobi................................. 20

Discipleship and Nurture

3.

Discipleship: The Kingdom Perspective--

David C. Pollock........................................................ 21

4.

Developing a Flow of Care--David C. Pollock ............... 33

III: Understanding MKs and TCKs

Resolutions from ICMK Nairobi................................. 39

Understanding the MK as a Third-Culture Kid

5. Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile--

David C. Pollock ....................................................... 40

6.

I Am Green--Ruth Goring .............................................. 50

7.

The Real Value of Growing Up Overseas--

Michael G. Loftis

....................................................... 54

8.

The MK's Advantage: Three Cultural Contexts--

Ted Ward .................................................................. 59

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Transitions

9.

Transitions and the TCK--Jean M. Larson ..................... 71

10.

Preparing Children for Missionary Life--

Sandra D. Wright with Paul E. Nelson ....................... 85

11.

Adventurer, Observer, Member: Helping MKs

Appreciate Local Culture--Sally Jane Norton ............ 95

12.

The Re-Entry Task--David C. Pollock ......................... 103

13.

Sudden Removal from the Field--John Powell .............. 113

College and Career

14.

Preparing Our MKs for College--Beth Wyse ................. 124

15.

Making Career Choices--David L. Wickstrom .............. 134

16.

Career Developments: Woodstock Class of 1968--

Steve Van Rooy ........................................................ 145

Adult MKs

17.

A TCP String of Five Pearls--William D. Taylor .......... 150

18.

Emotional and Behavorial Patterns of Adult MKS--

David L. Wickstrom ................................................. 159

19.

Bruising: When Things Go Wrong--

David L. Wickstrom ................................................. 170

IV: Resilient Families

Resolutions from ICMK Nairobi............................... 185

Families and Parenting

20.

Raising Resilient MKs--Diane Morris .......................... 187

21.

Family Dynamics That Affect the MK--

John Powell

............................................................. 197

22.

The Importance of Fathers in MK Development--

David L. Wickstrom ................................................. 204

Contents

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Healthy Development

23.

Preschool Curriculum: Structure and Wonder--

Diane Lilleberg ........................................................ 214

24.

Development: The Twig is Bent--Wayne D. Lance ....... 221

25.

Helping Students Develop: Key Concepts--

John R. Powell ........................................................ 240

V: Educational Issues

Resolutions from ICMK Nairobi............................... 250

Overview of MK Education

26.

Identifying Issues and Defining Terms--Brian V. Hill ... 252

27.

The Christian School in a Missions Context--

Richard J. Edlin ....................................................... 258

28.

Options of MK Education--Joyce M. Bowers ............... 273

29.

Making Informed Decisions--Joyce M. Bowers............. 282

Education Across Cultures

30.

Transcultural Education: A Model for Expatriates--

Brian V. Hill ............................................................ 288

31.

Foundation Stones of Transcultural Education--

Ollie Gibbs .............................................................. 301

32.

Building a Conceptual Framework for Transcultural

Education--Peter and Jan Blackwell ........................ 308

Language Learning

33.

Nurturing Our Student's Native Languages--

Anne-Christine Marttinen ....................................... 319

34.

Learning the Rules or Learning the Language?--

Marilyn Pool Andreasson

........................................ 323

35.

Second Language Issues for MKs in National

Schools--Cynthia Storrs ........................................... 331

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Multinational Complexities

36.

Multiple Choice in MK Education--

Alan McIlhenny

....................................................... 339

37.

...........................Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs--

Polly Chan

............................................................... 346

Boarding School

38.

Boarding: Getting Back to Basics--

Tom and Wendy Ballentyne ...................................... 360

39.

Preparing Children for Boarding School--

Nick and Dora Pauls ................................................ 365

Curriculum

40.

Developing Christian Curriculum: A Complex Task--

Diane Lilleberg ........................................................ 369

41.

Choosing a Curriculum--Diane Lilleberg ..................... 373

42.

A Framework for Culturally Sensitive Curriculum--

Richard J. Edlin ....................................................... 377

MK Schools--Administrative Issues

43.

Pre-Field Orientation--Philip M. Renicks .................... 381

44.

On-Site Orientation Programs--Bonnie McGill ............. 385

45.

Staff Relationships That Work--Roger H. Luce ............ 389

46.

Promoting Staff Continuance--David K. Wilcox ........... 402

MK Schools--Staff Issues

47.

Effective Parent-Teacher Partnerships--

David C. Pollock...................................................... 405

48.

Relations Between Teachers and Dorm Parents--

Evan

and Jewel Evans .............................................. 412

49.

You Are a Protector--David C. Pollock ....................... 417

Special Needs

50.

Children with Special Needs--Wayne D. Lance............. 422

Contents

ix

VI: Collaboration

Resolutions from ICMK Nairobi............................... 450

Research

51.

MK Research: Notes and Observations--

John R. Powell ......................................................... 453

52.

Doing Research Together--Ted Ward ........................... 466

Regional Organizations and Conferences

53.

................................ Development of Regional Networks--

David K. Wilcox ....................................................... 478

VII: Looking Toward the Future

54.

Trends in Missions: Implications for MKs--

Paul E. Nelson

......................................................... 489

55.

Trends in Member Care--David C. Pollock .................. 500

56.

Facing the Future: Issues in MK Education--

Philip M. Renicks

..................................................... 508

Appendix

About the Contributors ................................................. 518

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Foreword

There are significant advantages of being born into a missionary

home. Many outstanding Christian leaders grew up in mission settings.

Jack Layman is a leader in the international Christian school move-

ment and long-time headmaster at Ben Lippen School, which has provided
secondary education for generations of missionary children. After over-
seeing the education of hundreds of MKs, and conducting statistical and
evaluative studies, Jack Layman concluded that, taken as a whole, children
of missionaries are ahead of their monocultural American counterparts
academically, spiritually, and even socially. Most readers of this book
would concur that opportunities given to missionary children for cross-
cultural learning and direct participation in the spread of the gospel are
great privileges, which far outweigh any difficulties involved.

However, there are also hazards, as both critics and friends of the

missionary enterprise point out. Not all MKs thrive. This volume is
designed to shrink that number and increase the proportion of MKs who do
flourish because of their heritage.

Joyce Bowers has compiled a truly encyclopedic reference library in

one volume, treating every aspect of missionary children's experience. For
many it's a long-awaited resource:

· Missionary parents should find it invaluable; it will impact the

missions movement at its most critical--and vulnerable--point.

· Caretakers and educators of missionary children will find their

concerns addressed in detail in a major portion of this volume.

· Adult MKs will find resources for understanding, evaluating, and

responding to their own heritage.

With more than forty authors, both theoreticians and practitioners,

you can expect a wealth of experience and research data. But with so many
contributors, there are some things you should not expect:

· Don't expect all the essays to be of equal excellence. The quality

is uneven.

· Don't expect all the authors to agree. One of the contributions of

the book is to present varying, even opposing, viewpoints.

· Don't expect all theories or interpretations--even all "data"--to

be equally convincing or meet with your approval.

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If you are like me, some analyses will frustrate you and some

proposed solutions dismay you. But we grow as we are motivated to
examine a variety of ideas and sort out what is valid and valuable in
particular settings. For example, I would prefer more attention given to a
broader frame of reference and less treatment of "the MK" as a single
category with predictable characteristics.

My theory is that the common-denominator MK status is less

formative than the particulars of each home, each culture, and the response
of each child to his or her circumstances. On the other hand, I agree that
bi-culturalism is a major factor in the formation of a person. We all have
the option of developing our own approach, choosing what we will from
the large variety of resources provided here.

The editor and publishers have reached their goal in providing the first

of its kind, a unique contribution to the cause of world missions: a plethora
of resources on how to raise resilient MKs.

Robertson McQuilkin
Executive Director, Evangelical Missiological Society 1994-97

xiii

Preface

For the past ten years, I have worked with missionary personnel

through the Division for Global Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America. My responsibility for family and children's concerns
of missionaries included discussions with missionary candidates, whether
parents, teachers, or houseparents. I always wanted to put resources in
their hands which they could consult when needed. The two-volume com-
pendium from ICMK Quito (International Conference on Missionary Kids
held in January 1987) served that purpose well, but at least one volume is
no longer available.

My awareness of MKs also comes from being the wife of one MK,

the mother of two, the sister-in-law of four, and the aunt of five more,
several of whom are preparing for their own missionary service.

I was aware of many excellent articles on MKs which had been

published during the last decade, especially in Interact and World Report,
as well as Evangelical Missions Quarterly. Many were based on presen-
tations at post-ICMK regional conferences about MK issues, or on new re-
search projects. My files of articles on MKs and their education grew thick
over the years, but they were not easily shared with others. I wished that
"someone out there" would compile a single resource book, similar to Kelly
and Michelle O'Donnell's Helping Missionaries Grow (1988) or Kelly
O'Donnell's Missionary Care (1992), both published by William Carey
Library.

The idea that I should consider filling this gap was born in conver-

sations at the 1996 Mental Health and Missions conference. John Powell
and Dave Wickstrom, who founded that network of professionals in 1980
and coordinated it through 1997, were extremely supportive.

Not long afterwards, the coordinators for the three ICMKs, Dave

Pollock, Paul Nelson, and Phil Renicks, constituted themselves as an
editorial board and discussed the possibility of publishing a book which
would make resources of the ICMKs and numerous other conferences
available to new "generations" of MK caretakers, parents, and educators.
Their interest had developed independently from mine, but in God's
providence we were brought together.

It has been a great pleasure to work with these three men, each of

whom is fully committed to the growth of God's kingdom on earth,
expressed through training and care for missionaries and their children.

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Their chapters in the final section, "Looking Toward the Future," are
provocative and challenging.

Dave Pollock, who is the founder and Executive Director of

Interaction, Inc., is the ultimate "people person." His analysis and artic-
ulation of TCK issues has been the foundation of much of the work in that
field for two decades. The importance of Dave's contributions is reflected
here, as eight chapters were written by him, and a ninth is based directly on
his work. Dave's deep love for people is expressed even in discussions of
nitty-gritty details of deadlines, editing, and revisions.

Paul Nelson was Superintendent of Education for Wycliffe Bible

Translators when he co-chaired the ICMKs. Now he is President of
Mission Training International. Paul has provided guidance and counsel
during numerous telephone conversations and a few in-person consul-
tations. His ability to listen well, identify basic issues, and suggest
workable solutions is unsurpassed.

Phil Renicks is Vice President of International Ministries for the

Association of Christian Schools International. Hundreds of pages of
typed transcripts of ICMK Nairobi workshops came from his office,
providing considerable groundwork for this book. ACSI has provided the
expertise and facilities for the cover design and publication.

The ICMKs had contributed significantly to my own professional

development. It was exciting to present a workshop on young families at
ICMK Quito, when I had completed missionary service in Liberia and was
a social worker in foster care. At that time, my direct involvement in what
is now called "member care" for missionary families was still a dream.

The speech was riveting. For me, it put the conference in a pack-

age, wrapped it and tied a ribbon on it. I could not have imagined at the
time that I would be the one to transcribe and edit that very presentation
(Chapter 2) to make it available to a wide audience. Its relevance has only
increased during the past eight years.

My tendency to be a collector of papers served me well, as I had

original copies of the ICMK Nairobi schedules, workshop descriptions, and
daily newspaper, which were a great help in working on this book. Eleven
chapters are based on presentations made at Nairobi. With three
exceptions (Hill, Edlin, and Gibbs) they have previously been available
only on audiotape.

Preface

xv

Although Janet Blomberg's name does not appear as an author,

the stamp of her professionalism is evident throughout the book. The high
quality of her work as editor of the quarterly Interact (from which fourteen
chapters have been reprinted or adapted), her comprehensive knowledge of
MK issues, and her advice regarding material for this book, have contrib-
uted much to the quality of the product.

The person who has coached me through an incredible learning

process, as I produced more than five hundred camera-ready pages for this
book on a desktop computer, is free-lance editor Elizabeth Stout of
Evanston, Illinois. In both copy editing and production editing, her
attention to detail has given me a whole new definition of that phrase.

On a personal level, I was poignantly reminded of MK issues

during the past year while reading letters and diaries of Margie Bowers, my
late sister-in-law. The image of the "signet ring" is from one of her diaries.
If someone could have placed this book in her hands when she was a
student at Wheaton College, she would have read it eagerly and been
reassured that her experiences were perfectly normal.

Margie's life was cut short at age 25 by a hunting knife in the

hands of a "repeat offender." Except for its tragic ending, Margie's life
was so typical of MKs that she would be an unlikely subject for a book.
But in her desire to reflect Christ's love to others, a major theme of this
book, she was outstanding. The story of her brother Tom's spiritual
journey, as he wrestled with his need to forgive the man who took his
sister's life, was told in The Christian Reader (June 1993) and Decision
Magazine

, April 1995.

The following is a short summary of Margie's short life. The book

is dedicated to her memory.

Joyce M. Bowers

xvi

Margie Bowers

In Memoriam

Her birth:

April 12, 1952, small mission hospital, Zorzor, Liberia,

a daughter following four sons.

Her evangelist father trumpeted to the world:

"Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy! A girl at last!"

Her life:

Liberia: Totota, Sanoyea, Yanakwelle, Salala, Phebe;

Typical MK life: home schooling, boarding school.

High school at Ben Lippen, Asheville, North Carolina.

Another year in Liberia, then Wheaton College;

Finally, editorial assistant, Moody Press.

Her loves:

Her best friend, God,

In whom she confided more than in any human;

Her parents, her brother Tom;

Family, friends, church;

Music, literature, making things for others.

Her death:

April 29, 1977, Oak Park, Illinois.

Sudden, violent, ugly.

Headlines all over the U.S.;

Controversy about the insanity plea.

Her prayer:

To be a signet ring for God;

To leave the imprint of Christ's image

when pressed into the circumstances of life.

Part I:

Historical
Perspective

2

1.

Looking Back, Pressing Forward:
The Legacy of the ICMKs

Joyce M. Bowers

A Brief Historical Sketch

For over two centuries, Protestant cross-cultural mission has been

carried out by couples and families as well as by single adults. At first,
when no appropriate schooling was available on the field, children were
sent back to their parents' country for education, often causing five to
seven year family separations. Later, boarding schools were developed so
that children could remain closer to their families and still receive the
necessary education. Nineteenth-century missionary life required a pioneer
spirit and willingness to endure physical and other hardships, but so did the
immigrant life of thousands of Europeans who ventured forth to colonize
and settle the New World.

Although the needs of missionary children were a primary concern of

their families, especially their mothers, there was little attention given to
them on a broad scale. A century ago, lengthy family separations were
accepted as part of the price of fulfilling the Great Commission, along with
painfully slow, unreliable communication, inadequate health care and the
likelihood of death from childbirth or disease.

During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, conditions

gradually improved for missionaries as great advances were made in
financial support, communication, travel, and health care. Following
World War II, large numbers of North American missionaries were sent
out, building on the foundations established through the sacrificial labor of
earlier generations. The work of postwar missionaries was often blessed
by spectacular responses to the Gospel and the establishment of
independent national churches in many countries.

During the 1970s, issues of family dynamics became a new focus in

Christian circles. It became acceptable for people to talk about their
emotional wounds and to seek healing. Roles of Christian fathers and
mothers, family relationships, and the influences of an increasingly com-
plex and secular society were all of concern to Christians. It naturally
followed that new questions were asked about missionary families and the

The Legacy of the ICMKs

3

tensions between family and work which had always been a part of that
life. In particular, boarding schools, accepted as God's provision for
generations of missionaries, came under criticism.

ICMK Manila: November 1984

During the early 1980s, people in Evangelical mission circles began to

grapple with issues surrounding the increasingly spotlighted "missionary
kid." The Children's Education Department of Wycliffe Bible Translators
(led by Paul Nelson) in cooperation with Interaction (led by David Pollock)
called together a committee to organize an international conference. The
dreams of the committee were translated into reality as the first
International Conference on Missionary Kids (ICMK) was hosted by Faith
Academy in Manila, Philippines, in November 1984.

The first ICMK responded to concerns expressed by educators and

others involved with MKs (Missionary Kids) around the world. School
administrators, teachers, boarding home parents, counselors, parents,
mission administrators, and adult MKs were aware of issues and challenges
they held in common, but there had been no forum where they could
explore implications and initiate joint actions.

Many of the issues needing coordinated action had surfaced as a result

of significant changes taking place in the missions community. These
included:

·

worldwide technological explosion which radically changed

travel and communication and provided new options for education

·

movement away from large mission compounds resulting in

cultural isolation for missionary families

·

increase in missionaries having non-traditional roles in places

with strong anti-missionary sentiment

·

changing attitudes toward boarding homes for young children

·

changing perspectives on the appropriate balance between

ministry and family

·

emergence of strong churches in the third world which sent

increasing numbers of their own cross-cultural missionaries.

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The 1984 conference theme, "New Directions in Missions:

Implications for MKs," was designed to focus attention on these issues,
their effects on missionary children and families, and strategies to address
the problems involved. Presentations and discussion in seven plenary
sessions and forty-one workshops highlighted a wide range of challenges to
MKs' reaching their full potential as multicultural people. Topics included
pre-field preparation for missionary families, modification of educational
programs on the field to accommodate changing clientele, and re-entry
issues for MKs coming from the culture of their host country into the
culture of their country of citizenship. The 336 delegates from six
continents who attended ICMK Manila affirmed the value of addressing
this broad range of issues.

Never before had there been broad-based public discussion of

growing up in a multicultural environment. Awareness of missionary
childhood experience as it shapes the way MKs function as adults was
placed "on the map" by ICMK Manila. It became clear that two areas are
crucial in determining the way an MK's life is molded: elements of a
cross-cultural or multicultural childhood experience, and elements of
growing up in the missions subculture. Both aspects of MK life are so
basic they may be unnoticed, but both provide layers of complexity which
have life-long implications.

Steering committee member Carol Richardson described ICMK

Manila as follows:

Delegates came highly motivated to learn from one another

and to contribute to one another. The intense, almost non-stop
interaction between delegates the entire four days could be
described as productive, exciting, encouraging, exhausting,
overwhelming. In fact, for many delegates, cross-pollination of
ideas, the sharing of resources, and the mutual encouragement
centering around our pivot point--the MK--was the ultimate
benefit of ICMK Manila.

The planners of ICMK Manila envisioned it as a "one of a

kind" single event. However, as the conference progressed, the
broad range of issues being discussed, along with their com-
plexity and relevance to the missions community, prompted the
delegates to present a formal request. They wanted the ICMK

The Legacy of the ICMKs

5

committee to remain intact, to plan followup activities and
another International Conference on MKs!

During the next year, 1985, the newsletter Interact reported:

The measure of success of a conference is in its continuing

result. Besides indications from individuals that their personal
ministries have been helped, there have been planning sessions
of mission board personnel to develop MK care programs and
resource centers in the U.S., mini-consultations on alternative
education on the field, articles discussing MK care at various
levels, and personnel appointed by mission boards and
organizations specifically to address MK needs. Several "`MK
Host Homes"' are operating or are in various stages of
development. A number of Christian colleges are awakening to
ways of caring for their MKs and utilizing the skills and talents
of these MKs.

A compendium was published which made the plenary sessions and

workshops of ICMK Manila available to a much wider audience. The 488-
page volume, prepared by Pam Mortenson and Beth Tetzel, titled New
Directions in Missions: Implications for MKs.

ICMK Quito: January 1987

A second conference was planned for January 48, 1987, in Quito,

Ecuador, co-hosted by Alliance Academy and radio station HCJB. The
theme for this second conference, "MKs Nurtured by Communities," was a
response to the suggestion that a future conference focus on MKs
themselves. Presentations and workshops identified communities that
touch an MK's life (home and host cultures, family, supporting churches,
mission subculture, schools and colleges) and explored their nature. Issues
of culture received a great deal of attention as host and home cultures were
discussed from the perspective of the MK. There was unprecedented
frankness in naming weaknesses in the missions subculture as it impacts
families and children, as well as some passionate defense of the ways
things had been done.

The concept of the "Flow of Care" for MKs presented at ICMK

Manila was further developed at ICMK Quito. Emphasis on the MK as a
"global nomad" being nurtured by caring communities gave structure to the

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conference. Plenary sessions were designed to set direction for the work
sessions. Workshops and seminars furnished input for job and interest
groupings. "Working workshops" of significant length provided the
opportunity for pooling delegates' expertise and brainstorming strategies
for future ministry together.

A mini-conference for boarding home parents was held just prior to

ICMK Quito. Participants discussed boarding from the perspective of
boarding home parents: successful models, roles, concerns, pre-field
preparation, and the boarding program as a whole.

At ICMK Quito, a range of issues were explored from the point of

view of the impact on the MK: interaction with family, supporting
churches, mission agencies, MK schools, boarding homes, post-secondary
education, vocational choices and spouses. It became clear that each had
the potential for both positive and negative impact.

Many of the 538 delegates were MKs themselves. Some felt signif-

icant emotional pain as they identified with other MKs sharing the same
struggles and conflicts. Others found strength in that identification,
realizing that they had been provided with unique resources and oppor-
tunities to grow by being raised in a multinational environment. All of the
delegates, whether MKs or not, were moved by a fuller understanding of
the profound effects of growing up as an MK on one's self-esteem, world
view, life goals, and the potential to reach those goals.

The final afternoon of ICMK Quito was spent in job or interest

groups. These groups were asked to suggest activities which would better
serve the missions community and MKs. The groups produced lists with
several hundred suggestions for articles, research, and services to be
provided. The implementation of these initiatives was generally left to
those who suggested them, but factors such as current responsibilities of
the delegates and the geographic distance between them made follow-
through unlikely.

The response to ICMK Quito was overwhelmingly positive. The

following was reported in the newsletter Interact:

Adult MKs at the Quito conference indicated that they felt a

new sense of purpose and identity. Some parents of MKs gained
new insights into the life-long impact that growing up in a cross-
cultural environment has on their children. Educators in MK

The Legacy of the ICMKs

7

schools were challenged to expand their curriculum to enhance
the potential of the clientele they serve.

The communities of which missionary families are a part are

becoming increasingly sensitized to specific ways they can help MKs
realize the unique potential their lives represent. The pain and alienation
discussed at ICMK-Quito are not necessarily the inevitable result of cross-
cultural ministry.

There is hardly a mission agency in the world today that is not aware

of the special needs of MKs. The climate is right to make some significant
changes in the way missionary families are impacted by cross-cultural
service, and ICMK is continuing to serve as a catalyst in this process.

A two-volume compendium was prepared based on presentations at

ICMK Quito, edited by Alice Arathoon and Pam Echerd, SIL missionaries
in Guatemala. It was published in 1989 by William Carey Library, with
Volume 1 titled Understanding and Nurturing the Missionary Family and
Volume 2 titled Planning for MK Nurture.

ICMK Nairobi: November 1989

The purposes of the ICMKs evolved from one conference to the next.

ICMK Manila raised a general awareness of differences between children
who grow up in a monocultural environment and those raised in the
multicultural context of the missions community. ICMK Quito focused on
the implications of those differences in the missions community. ICMK
Nairobi focused on enhancing the advantages and minimizing the
disadvantages of those differences.

The theme for ICMK Nairobi was "Timely Responses to Today's

Realities: The MK Challenge in the Multinational Missions Community."
The theme reflected recognition of the multinational character of the
missions community, and concerns for the care of missionary families and
the education of missionary children of many nations.

The rationale for ICMK Nairobi was expressed in a statement written

by Paul Nelson:

1.

When multicultural young adults face difficulties in

adjustment, the cause may be the result of inappropriate goals
and expectations. People who spend a significant number of

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their developmental years outside their country of citizenship
approach life in ways that differ from monocultural individuals.
It is assumed by some parents, school and mission
administrators, and church leaders that both groups ought to
have the same aspirations, values, world view, motivation,
vocational options and potential. If so, the goal would be to
provide an educational system for the multicultural child which
was as similar to that of the monocultural child as circumstances
permit. Involvement with and study of the host culture is viewed
as a valued enhancement to education rather than designed as an
integral part.

If this goal were realized, a multicultural child would be

fully acculturated to his parents' home country after leaving his
adopted home. He or she would make a "normal" academic,
linguistic and cultural transition into the system of higher
education of that country and would hold the same values, world
view, standards of success and vocational priorities as any well-
educated monocultural Christian there.

Education and other support services of the homeland are

designed to help young people function well as monocultural
adults rather than to help multicultural youth recognize, value
and develop their multicultural potential. It is relatively well
documented that MKs will never be completely free of their
multicultural heritage. To assume that educational programs
and support services should be designed to minimize the effects
of a multicultural background is to cause a potentially significant
asset to be perceived as a deficiency. It should also be noted that
most MKs have no desire to be free of their multicultural
heritage.

2.

As the missions community becomes increasingly

multinational, it is impractical to develop parallel educational
programs which seek to duplicate the educational system of
every nationality working in a given region. Rather than work
toward a strategy which would implement multiple tracks within
MK schools to meet the needs of each nationality, it might be
more constructive to work toward the development and
implementation of a model to internationalize the schools which

The Legacy of the ICMKs

9

MKs attend. The focus of the curriculum would be on the
broader concepts which form the basis for all exploration of
truth rather than on the cultural overlays which prevent students
from seeing the universality of the concept. Skills required to
interact with and apply these broad principles would be taught
and reinforced in ways that reflect the various countries of
citizenship, but incidental differences between approaches would
not be given disproportionate attention.

Models for a curriculum which will fulfill this goal of a

multinational education are being developed by a variety of
international agencies. The challenge is to learn from what has
already been done and adopt those which meet agreed-upon
criteria. Some form of internationalization of the curriculum is
being proposed at all levels in the educational systems of most
first world countries.

3.

The distinction between expatriate and national is

artificial and inappropriate in the Body of Christ. The mandate
to eliminate such distinctions among Believers is a major theme
of the New Testament. As churches in host countries develop
the kind of maturity and leadership necessary to assume
responsibility for the activities and institutions previously
established by expatriate missionaries, it is essential that both
groups explore ways to achieve and maintain harmonious
working relationships in spite of cultural differences.

MKs, as Christians whose faith is potentially less encum-

bered by the "ethnoradiance" characteristic of most cross-
cultural workers, may have some significant contributions to
make to the development of these working relationships and
Scriptural unity. The next ICMK might well explore both the
theological foundation as well as some practical ways MKs can
get involved in developing and implementing Christian unity in
this complex cross-cultural context.

ICMK Nairobi was hosted by Rift Valley Academy and Rosslyn

Academy and met November 26 December 2, 1989. Plans for meeting in
the Kenyatta International Conference Centre were pre-empted by a high-
level international government conference. Providentially, a new venue

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10

was identified: the beautiful United Nations complex on the outskirts of
Nairobi. However, the new location required bus transportation from
hotels, a major undertaking for nearly 700 delegates.

The format of ICMK Nairobi was more of a congress than a

conference. Resolutions were presented for consideration in plenary
sessions, with time allotted for clarifying issues, presenting rationale,
identifying constraints, developing strategies, and proposing actions.

In recognition of the growing international and intercultural character

of the missions community, the thrust of the Nairobi conference was the
internationalizing, interculturalizing, or globalizing of the curriculum of
MK schools. Two specific aspects of this were considered: 1) modification
of the present curriculum to provide adequate credentials permitting non-
North American MKs to continue their education with the greatest ease,
and 2) modification of present curriculum to provide the greatest
opportunity for students to develop their potential as cross-cultural and
international persons.

The February 1990 issue of Interact reported that ICMK Nairobi had

686 delegates from 57 countries, representing 20 nationalities, 150 mission
groups, and 127 schools (including 52 MK schools). The delegates
included 119 adult MKs, 505 missionaries, 376 MK parents, 308 MK
teachers, and 106 school administrators. (Many people were counted in
more than one category.)

ICMK Nairobi ended with an outpouring of gratitude to God and to

the planners and hosts of all the ICMKs. The week in Nairobi exceeded all
expectations both in things accomplished and in professional and spiritual
stimulation. It was a rewarding conclusion to the series of three ICMKs as
they had evolved through the decade of the 1980s. By the end of ICMK
Nairobi, there was a consensus that work on behalf of MKs and their
families would most effectively be done by regional or special interest
conferences rather than in general global conferences. The subsequent
development of regional conferences is described in Chapter 53.

Some of the greatest values of the ICMKs were the interaction

required to plan them, and the establishment of a worldwide network of
people who have a vital interest in missionary families. The conferences
provided the framework for forming working relationships, discussing

The Legacy of the ICMKs

11

essential issues, resolving conflicts, and establishing a sense of inter-
dependence. ICMK was indeed a "timely response to today's realities."

12

2.

MKs in Perspective:
Deacons for the 21st Century

Ted Ward

What has really happened during this week at ICMK Nairobi? Have

we really been asked to think, or are we stuck with cliché answers?

For some of us, especially those who have attended other ICMKs, it

has been a happy reunion, a celebration. For some, it's been a continuation
of therapy, a continuation of reconciliation. For others it has offered the
beginning of a long process of searching for self-understanding.

At best, ICMK Nairobi has been a renewal of hope. At worst, it has

been one more affirmation of alienation and loneliness. In any conference
where we focus on troubles and problems, there is a terrible danger of self-
pity. But there is also the danger of denial. I hope that those of us who are
still in a mode of denial will open ourselves up to the ministry of God as
Holy Spirit in restoration, healing, and forgiveness.

For others of us it has been a professional learning experience. Our

jobs relate to human pain, and we learn so we can help others better. But
here again, a danger lurks. We may put it all in our heads, while the
problems are really in the hearts. We dare not feel less simply because we
learn

more. And there is a danger of oversimplification. Important

problems deserve careful solutions.

An Ongoing Process

In this conference we've been able to see a process some of us began

in Manila, some in Quito, and some this week. It has a similar pattern for
almost everyone.

1.

Naming the problems.

Any good counselor knows that when

you can name your problems and face up to them, you're halfway home.

2. Defining the problems. We have learned more about how things

fit together.

3.

Facing our own personal histories

, seeking personal therapy

and self-discovery. And watch out, many of the emotional problems and

Deacons for the 21

st

Century

13

most of the needs that we identify as MK problems are in fact not unique to
MKs or overseas kids. Many of these problems are exacerbated by the
overseas situation, but in fact they are the challenges of growing up in a
complex world.

4.

Finding support, building constructive networks.

That's one of

the greatest things that happens when we take the time, effort, and money
to come together and really share. There are things you can't do on paper
or in books.

5.

Realizing that we are not simply the victims of social

situations

, but in fact in this whole business of being God's witness in the

world, we confront principalities and powers, many of which have
invaded the mission system.

Problems and Possibilities

There are problems which must be solved, and we've begun to open

them up. We've begun to see people propose possibilities and commit
themselves to action. Let me name just a few:

·

Selection, training, and inservice education of dorm parents

·

Selection, training, and inservice education of missionary kid

school teachers

·

Pre-field preparation of whole families

·

On-field support assistances for whole families

·

(Dare I say it?) Coming to grips with legalistic theology and the

social hangups it has created for us.

·

(If I can get away with that one, the last one on my list is:) Non-

Christian management styles within our mission operations.

Never ask a fish to describe how it feels to live in the water. A fish

cannot describe that context, because it has no perspective. It's our own
culture, the culture of being a missionary, that's the hardest to see. Do we
really understand our own peculiar subcultures as foreigners, as mis-
sionaries, as returning persons, as helpers?

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Needs

A process of increased understanding has unfolded from Manila to

Quito to Nairobi. Some needs are becoming very clear:

·

to gain perspective

·

to understand ourselves better

·

to learn to forgive, which is a spiritual task

·

to learn to help.

Motives

In addition, there are some motives which have emerged through the

three ICMK conferences:

·

to comprehend sources of problems, not simply identify them

·

to plan strategies of change, not simply to complain about

conditions

·

to commit ourselves to positive roles.

In this conference something very important has happened. It has

been evident that many of us have been enlisted, and many have accepted
the challenge. We expect to hear significant things in the future that have
their roots in commitments made this week.

Another motive that is emerging is: to recognize and emphasize the

advantages of being bicultural and multilingual, and ultimately to connect
that with the very important Christian task of learning the culture of the
Kingdom.

When we use the terms "transculture" and "transcultural" we ought to

recognize that this is not simply a nice option if you have time to work on
it. Transculturalness is what it is all about to be a Christian in this world.
Just ahead, we may anticipate that many of us will be helping the people of
God become intercultural, or better yet, become transcultural. The energy
from this conference and through the people here, moving into the church
of Jesus Christ, is marvelous to contemplate.

Deacons for the 21

st

Century

15

One of the things that I find exciting about the ICMK conferences is

that they are the most clearly cross-sectional in terms of gender, age, roles,
type of mission work, and mission organization, of any gathering that
missionaries ever engage in--much more so, for example, than field
councils or home conferences, any one church's missionary conferences, or
typical meetings of IFMA and EFMA.

There's real promise here for some kind of long-term venture in which

we learn to communicate effectively within the community of faith about
the overseas mission of the church. Just ahead also may be some inroads
into what I believe to be one of the most crucial problems that we deal with
in this series of conferences, and that is to loosen the deadly grip of secular
culture on our missionary kid schools.

Pitfalls

What do we need next? Some have suggested topical conferences;

some have suggested regional conferences. Whatever we do, we must
watch out for the pitfalls. I see the major pitfall as the tendency to blame--
the tendency to affix the guilt and assume that's why we're here. I felt it
first in Manila where there was a tendency to blame the schools. But it's
too easy to blame the schools, and it's not going to solve anything just to
fix the blame. We came on to Quito, and there we learned to blame the
family.

Many of us engaged in a kind of therapeutic catharsis, and maybe

we needed it. We tended to dramatize family relationships as being the
crux of the problem. That was a pitfall. I think we've come perilously
close here in Nairobi to blaming the missions--maybe the next step in the
blaming process. We seem to want to fix the guilt somewhere.

A Broader Perspective

But let me suggest we get a little broader perspective. All of these

things fit within a context which has to be seen as the whole community of
mission--a community that exists as culture of its own impinged upon by
about five other cultural functions, and producing a kind of lifestyle
peculiar to itself that is somewhat asynchronous, not harmonized with
virtually any of the rest of those cultures and in some cases asynchronous,
with the transcultural perspective of the Kingdom of God.

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I think that would be an interesting theme for a conference. Could you

get anybody to come? In every case where we have focused on one aspect
or another, the true lurking demon is simplistic cause-and-effect models
which cause us to assume that certain kinds of therapies are needed, and
once we have them in place, it will all get better. I think we have to get at
the whole context, not just treat symptoms.

Nairobi is a milestone. If in the past we pointed to school issues, kids'

issues, adult and MK issues, Nairobi has broadened that to mission family
issues and readied us to think in terms of cultural context. I've said it
before: I don't think the MK is the right unit of analysis. We need to look
at larger contexts through which the missions community shapes the
mission family and thus shapes Mks.

Who Are We?

The first step is to get to know ourselves. We need to see how we

have come to be what we are. Our uniqueness in our particular cultural
context--the combination of our own culture and the culture of the country
to which we have been called--makes us "green" in Ruth Goring Stewart's
metaphor. Uniqueness is the hallmark of being Christian in the next
century.

What's wrong with being green? What's wrong with being unique?

What's wrong with being Christ's ones? Not a thing is wrong with that!
Let's focus it.

The Mind of Christ

The second step is orienting that uniqueness toward Christ. "Be

transformed by the renewing of your minds." And a crucial passage, Phil-
ippians 2: 5-11, "Let this mind be in you"--a mind of servanthood, not a
mind of claiming rights. Here's how we sound: "This is my right as an
Englishman; this is my right as an American; this is my right as an
Australian." Where is, "Let this mind be in you, the mind of the servant,
even the servant who is obedient to death."?

Take a loose hold on life. It's not the best we've got coming.

Deacons for the 21

st

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Cultural Flexibility

Then step three: Move all of that toward cultural flexibility. Gain

some skills. Learn how to be as Christ was -- from another place, from
another standard of life. And as we all know, he left it behind, as the
Philippians passage states, and he became an example of a person moving
into another culture and coping with it extremely well. We also see in the
Apostle Paul evidence of this same kind of capacity to be culturally
flexible. Paul was a man of several cultures, but a man called of God to
minister in expanding ways in the world because he dedicated that
multicultural framework built on his experiences to the service of Jesus
Christ. He moved out effectively because he was adaptive and he could be
"all things to all people." What a marvelous thing to have written on your
tombstone! Think about that kind of transcendence--beyond our personal
needs and aspirations; beyond our desire to serve each other; beyond
missions as outreach.

Christ is glorified in his church. The church must be in a culture, and

yet the church must rise above culture. That is the meaning of "transcul-
tural." It's bigger than intercultural. I'm not satisfied that an intercultural
curriculum, though valid, will answer the whole problem. Virtually all the
educational enterprises of the world today are currently looking at such
issues as globalization, internationalization, and larger scale world
perspective building. Every country in the world has made at least some
effort in this regard. We live in a world where in order to be competent,
you literally have to be intercultural to some degree. Because of the ethos
that we have created around ourselves, we as Americans (and I speak as an
American, self-critically) have become complacent, even though our own
country is rapidly becoming a combination of three major racial groups.

Multilingualism is common in American cities, but North American

churches still remain monolingual. Multilingualism is an absolute
necessity to function well in the city of Los Angeles, the city of Miami, and
a dozen other places in the United States unless you stay in your ghetto--
and we are often quite content to do just that. God help us!

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The MK situation is but one case of the larger task of the church. As

Brian Hill says, the MK is a potential resource for the church, and I think
we need to keep saying this.

Serving the Church as Deacons

As we leave Nairobi, let us go forth with a new awareness of what it is

to serve the church as deacons. That's a strange twist in the conversation,
but follow me closely. The first fulfillment of the meaning of deacon is
recorded in Acts 6:17. The church at that point was a local assembly or
series of assemblies in one place. They were not yet looking outward.
Although they had the Great Commission ringing in their ears-- to go first
to Jerusalem, then Judea, then outward to Samaria and to the uttermost
parts of the world--they were still quite content to stay in Jerusalem.

But, because they were a normal group of human beings, there were

cultural problems. There are cultural or subcultural problems in every
church of Jesus Christ, and I believe that the intention of God was that his
people would know how to cope with cultural problems. Why do I think
that? Because the first problem identified as something to be dealt with by
the people of God in that first church in Jerusalem was racial prejudice,
bias, and neglect. It is a very human tendency that exists everywhere
because of the fallenness of humankind. It even infects the church of Jesus
Christ -- it did in Jerusalem, and it still does today.

The focus was the neglect of the widows of the Greek Christian

community, Greeks who probably had been proselyted into Judaism and
then on into Christianity. If that's not third culture, I don't know what is.
And those third-culture people, who were outsiders even though they were
Christians, were being neglected by the majority. It was this that provoked
the apostles to call together the whole community and (to paraphrase Acts
6:2) "It is not good for these unresolved cultural dissonances to keep us all
from effective and worshipful focus on the Word of God." Read it closely.
The need then and now was to identify special people within that
community whose backgrounds prepared them for that moment when the
church needed help with cultural bias and ethnocentric selfishness.

So, they identified seven people. Listen closely and see if you notice

anything, if you know anything about the languages of the Mediterranean.
First, Stephen--we know about him. We've also heard about Philip. Pro-

Deacons for the 21

st

Century

19

corus--now, there's an unlikely Jewish name! Nicanor--hmm, he didn't
run the delicatessen. Timon--he probably wasn't the son of a Levite.
Parmenas--another one of those sneaky Greeks. And Luke says
specifically of Nicholaus that he was from Antioch, a Gentile.

Isn't that an interesting list! They picked their third-culture kids!

Think about it. The original deacons were the ones commissioned to deal
with the problem of ethnic dissonance within the body of faith. May God
give us a crop of people who understand, because they've been there, what
it is to come to terms with being a transcultural Christian. Do you see why
I'm so hopeful about MKs? But where in the world today is a church with
a problem like that, that would select seven people from the minority to
deal with the minority problem?

Things aren't as they should be. Racism still infects the church.

Racism still blights missions. It is an evidence of fallenness. Racism and
cultural superiority--we politely call it ethnocentrism. But whether it is
Americans who do it, or Chinese or Nigerians, it is evidence of fallenness
and sin. Evidence of being normal human beings. Evidence of being
natural

human beings. The catch is, we haven't been called to be natural

anything, folks. We've been called to be different!

We do need to take a look at organizational lethargy, sometimes too

attached to the old ways, or the way we've always done it. But we also
need to look at ethnic aloofness, defended in many places by such
questionable notions as "the homogeneous unit principle." Many facets of
the missionary community engender aloofness, suspicion, fear, and anger.
No wonder we've got problems. We are not always a good reflection of
our Lord, the Prince of Peace. For all of us--MKs, parents of MKs,
teachers, counselors, researchers, executives--"becoming green" in Ruth
Goring Stewart's sense involves pain and risk. And making the most of
multicultural background requires effort. It requires assistance; we all need
help. But more important, it requires Christian grace and humility.

Based on the closing address at ICMK Nairobi.

Part II:

MKs, TCKs
and the
Body of Christ

21

Resolution XIV

Discipleship

Whereas MKs are faced with multiple challenges in living
consistent Christian lives, and

Whereas it is vital that MKs be trained as World Christians,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi resolve that the greatest
responsibility held by all who work with MKs is to train them in
the ways of the Lord, so that they may live as responsible,
responsive servants of Christ in the world community.

Resolution XV

Christian Nurture

We, the MKs of ICMK Nairobi, are grateful to the Lord for
the time, energy, and monies spent on the issues involving us,
our families, and the other MKs to come, of all nationalities.
We stand with the entire delegation in affirming the resolutions
to aid the present and future MKs to become all they can be in
God's grace.

We commit ourselves to a more active and responsible role in
the Body of Christ, and to continue care and support of MKs
of all nations, irrespective of their professions, recognizing
that any vocation chosen under God's guidance is sacred.

We thank the Lord for the unique opportunities of being MKs,
and the experiences he has used and continues to use to mold
us into his likeness.

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3.

Discipleship:
The Kingdom Perspective

David C. Pollock

When Jesus commissioned the disciples, he said, "As the Father sent

me, so send I you" (John 20:21). When he prayed, he said, "Father, I have
glorified you," and then he prayed that we would glorify God. The glory of
God is the demonstration of his character. The fulfillment of the Great
Commission is not a simple cognitive process of hearing certain facts, but
it is living the reality of the Good News.

In dealing with any young people, but especially missionary kids,

there is a controlling way of thinking that must superintend our attitudes
and behavior. The commitment to glorify God is the main ingredient of
that mindset and its impact.

Jim Reapsome has written that mission strategy is articulated in

Jesus' prayer, "My prayer is ... that all of them may be one, Father, ... that
the world may believe that you have sent me" (John 17:2021). This unity
is the product of obedience to the specific commandment in John 13:34
that we love one another as Christ has loved us. This love is the identi-
fying mark of a Christian. As Jesus said, "By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

The first International Conference on Missionary Kids was built

around the concept of a flow of care enveloping every phase of the exper-
ience of overseas missions personnel. The underlying concept that gave
rise to that process, now adopted by even the Foreign Service Youth Foun-
dation of the U.S. State Department, was, and is, the directive to "love one
another as I have loved you" (John 13:34). There has been growing
attention to member care in mission organizations not only because of the
pressures of the day, but also based on the conviction that Jesus was
serious when he spoke the words recorded in John 1317.

The consciousness leading to change of policy and programs for

personnel care is making a long-term impact on missions. A significant
number of mission leaders want to make Jesus' message the operative prin-
ciple of their own ministries and of all the personnel policies and practices

Discipleship: The Kingdom Perspective

23

of their agencies. The functional definition of the love Jesus talked about
is choosing to act on behalf of one another. Such action forces the world to
acknowledge that we are his disciples. Besides testimony to the world of
our reconciliation to Christ, there is also a pragmatic impact of reducing
attrition from the missionary ranks.

Jesus' Model for Christian Faith and Witness

John 13 describes three breathtakingly simple vignettes which portray

some of the bedrock of our Christian faith. First, Jesus gathered the
disciples in an upper room in preparation for the Passover meal. It was
customary for a servant or perhaps the least important person at a
gathering to wash the feet of guests. Instead, Jesus, the host, did an
amazing thing. John 13:34 says, "And Jesus, knowing that he had come
from the Father and all things were put under him, removed his robe and
wrapped a towel around his waist."

Because he knew who he was, he was able to be the servant, and to

foreshadow what he was about to do on the cross: serve them. So he took
a basin and water and washed their feet--twelve pairs, including Judas.
After he finished, Jesus said to them, "You call Me Master and Lord, and
you do well because that's exactly who I am. You have seen what I have
just done to you. Do it to each other."

Second, they broke bread together and he gave them another glimpse

of what was going to happen: "This is my body, broken for you. This is
my blood, shed for you." They had no idea what he was talking about until
after his death and resurrection, but those simple words and actions of
Jesus have become a central symbol of the Christian faith. For 2,000 years
the followers of Jesus all over the world have remembered and re-enacted
that modest yet profound scene every time they celebrate the Lord's Supper
or Holy Communion.

Third, after the supper had been eaten and Judas had been dismissed,

Jesus said to the disciples, "I give you a new commandment, that you love
one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have this love
one for another."

This statement is as radical in its implications as Jesus'

actions in washing the disciples' feet or his words about his body and

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blood. The issue of loving one another is tied, without a breath in between,
to the issue of making an impact on the world. For all time, Jesus
established that the Great Commandment and the Great Commission are
inseparable.

Mission Strategy

At missions conferences we often talk about strategy. How are we

going to reach the world for Christ? We worry about things like recruiting
enough people and producing literature and how to share the gospel in
countries where traditional missionaries aren't welcome. There's nothing
wrong with strategy--the Apostle Paul had a strategy which determined
how he would approach a community. When we talk about missions, we
also discuss tools--the technology that has exploded in recent years. I
believe God has given us this technology just at the time the population of
the world has exploded, so that it is possible to obey the Great Commission
in our generation. When we think about missions, it's appropriate to think
about strategy and technology. However, in that process, we must also
look at some basic issues Jesus said must be at the heart of our strategy.

Jesus tells us a radically different way to make an impact, because the

world has a way of observing us carefully and asking what makes us
different. When we invest in the care of missionaries and their children out
of hearts filled with the love of Christ, we are doing mission, because the
community sees that and says, "Behold how they love one another."

During a bus ride in India, I had a conversation with an Indian man

who told me he was working for the government helping poor people to
develop housing. I said, "That's interesting. My son and daughter-in-law
are involved in the Solomon Islands as directors of a project under Habitat
for Humanity." He said, "That's a Christian organization, isn't it?"
"Yes." As he asked that, I turned and saw his eyes brimming with tears.
He said, "I am so ashamed of being a Muslim. We're too busy waging
wars and getting revenge. We usually don't do those things [acts of
caring]. Why do you?"

I was so glad he asked. For the next forty-five minutes I told him

about the love of Jesus Christ shed abroad in our hearts. You see, what
attracted him and raised the question was not great arguments, great

Discipleship: The Kingdom Perspective

25

strategy, or technology, as good as those things are. It was that someone
did something with no other motivation but the love of Jesus Christ.

Caring for missionary kids and missionary families is not an

appendage to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. It's not simply an
accommodation for human weakness, or the fact that some people can't
hold it together when they're overseas. It is the opportunity to demonstrate
the love of Jesus Christ among ourselves so that the world has to say,
"Behold, how they love one another. Why?" Then we can tell them of the
love of Christ. The issue of caring for missionary kids is valid because
we've been given a directive by the King of Kings.

This emphasis is being seen in awareness of the need for adequate

pre-field orientation for international school personnel. For more than ten
years such a program has been available in the U.S., and now a similar
program is in the United Kingdom. The theme for the pre-field orientation
sponsored by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI)
and Interaction has been "caring enough to learn, learning enough to care."
Each year more mission agencies and international Christian schools make
this program a requirement for their school personnel, because of the need
to prepare people to actively and accurately extend the love of Christ
toward these young people and ultimately to their families. It is what we
are

that enables us to invest in the lives of the kids God has given to us.

Delivering better service is more critical than delivering better curriculum.

Two-Thirds World Missionary Kids

I stand in awe of what God is doing in raising up missionaries from

the two-thirds world, especially Asia. God gave his people the command
to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and there's
a great genius in the whole process of being sent. Those to whom others
were sent in the past are now the ones who are sending. This is a source of
great delight and wonder. We need to pay attention to where God is going
and be very careful to move along closely behind him. The old sending
countries have responsibility to support and aid the new sending countries
in a variety of ways, including their member care.

The importance of missionary family needs is recognized among

people in leadership and responsibility in two-thirds world missions. A

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few persons are engaged in full-time ministry to Asian missionary children
and families, but the importance of that ministry is just being recognized.
This is an area of great potential for growth in vision and ministry.

The children of two-thirds world missionaries sometimes experience

great pain. Some struggle to learn English so they can go to school, the
language of the country where they are placed, the language of the tribe or
community where their parents minister, and also try to hang on to their
mother tongue. All that creates a lot of confusion and stress in the family.
Some families see their children changing drastically--becoming more
American than Chinese or Korean--and their hearts ache. They are con-
fused and wonder about the decisions they have made. They have been far
more costly than they thought they would be, should be, or need to be.
God has given us unique opportunities to minister across cultural and
community lines. I pray that God will give us the vision to do this well.

Motivation for Working with Missionary Kids

In the rush and pressure of our lives, we sometimes need to remind

ourselves of the basic motivations for serving MKs and their families.
There are three things that motivate me to work with missionary kids and
other third-culture kids.

The Presence of Missionary Kids

The simple presence of missionary kids motivates me. Just the fact

that they're there automatically makes them a subject for our attention and
our concern. Under normal circumstances, there is no time or place where
people apologize for working with kids. We have youth programs in our
churches. Every country has educational systems. Why should we need an
apologetic for why we are working with TCKs? Their very presence gives
us opportunities to demonstrate Christ's love. Jesus said, "By this [love]
shall all people know that you are my disciples."

Obedience to the full counsel of Scripture is critical to acting in love.

The Scripture is clear in revealing God's regard for children. In Matthew
19, Peter asks Jesus, "What do we get out of this? We've given up so
much." Jesus answers, "If you have given up houses and lands and chil-
dren and other things, you will get back a hundredfold." The tragedy is

Discipleship: The Kingdom Perspective

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that over the history of modern missions that has become the proof text for
brushing kids aside, with the message that giving up kids is OK. In
Matthew 19, Jesus said this to Peter, who had asked "What do I get out of
it? I've given up a lot." In essence, Jesus was saying, "Peter, God is no
one's debtor. Whatever you do give up, God gives back in multiples."

While focusing on Matthew 19, we have tended to forget what Jesus

said in Matthew 18: "If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it
would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck, and you were
cast into the sea." That's serious! The whole 18th chapter of Matthew
underlines God's view of the care of children. There could be no greater
apologetic for MK care; the basic reason is God said to do it. Simply the
presence of MKs makes ministry to them valid, critically important, and in
obedience to what Jesus said we need to be doing in relationship to kids.

Sometimes missionaries whose ministry is teaching or caregiving for

MKs are asked "Why aren't you a real missionary?" MK care may be
considered less strategic in comparison to evangelism or church planting,
but ministry to MKs is being a real missionary. MKs need Christ too.
Missionary children are born sinners too, and they need to come to know
Jesus Christ--even the "good" kids who obey all the rules and do what is
expected. Those who know Christ and are part of the family of God
require compassionate care as well.

The Needs of Missionary Parents

I am involved with missionary kids on account of their parents. We

minister to MKs so that parents are able to do the task that God has given
them. This does not imply that others should take over parenting MKs.
The responsibility is to come alongside the TCK as part of the caring
community and alongside parents to help them be parents. To be prepared
to assist in critical situations, whether in the home country or overseas, is
the role of the MK/TCK caregiver. Education, discipleship, comfort,
correction, and support are areas of responsibility that must be filled.

Not all the TCKs in mission schools are MKs. We have the

opportunity to represent Christ to both children and their parents. All
TCKs in our care deserve to be treated with equal concern and care.
Making disciples involves the communication of the Good News, bringing

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the person into the Kingdom and letting the Holy Spirit work. It also
involves making disciples and teaching them to obey what has been
commanded.

Families are able to stay on the field because their kids are cared for.

In a recent very large study on missionary attrition, between 9% and 35%
of attrition worldwide is because of issues related to kids, especially
educational issues. When there are problems and tensions in MK schools,
the entire mission community is affected. When teachers and admin-
istrators get disgruntled and nip away at each other, they are undermining
missions. When children are not treated well, parents cannot stay.

The Potential of Missionary Kids

We are involved with missionary kids because of the potential each

one has to do the task that God has given him or her. In the United States,
InterVarsity sponsors a conference every three years at Urbana, Illinois.
Nineteen thousand young people attended that last missions conference.
The Christian community invests millions of dollars to bring together
19,000 mainly monocultural young people to challenge them about
missions. Yet, we find it difficult to raise funds to invest in missionary
kids who know the language, respond to the culture, and who have a
perspective on missions that helps get on with the task. Though not every
missionary kid ought to be a missionary, we ought to be doing things that
will enable them to consider their place in the Kingdom. In one survey we
discovered that 25% of missionary kids went back as missionaries, and
17% as career missionaries. That's worth investing in! At one re-entry
seminar, we sat around the dinner table with a group of young people from
Latin America. During the conversation I said to them, "You've been part
of the missions community all your lives. If you were to take over, what
would you do?" There was silence for a moment. Then they began to talk,
and I realized I was listening to a discussion of missiology that grew out of
a rather well-founded base. I was amazed at their perceptions. After they
had talked for an hour or so, I asked, "In the light of what you think should
happen to reach Latin America, what do you think you ought to do about
it?" One young man, whose father had told me his son wanted nothing to
do with Latin America, looked at me and said, "I guess maybe I'll have to
go back." And he has prepared to do exactly that.

Discipleship: The Kingdom Perspective

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When we look at the potential for our TCKs in the Kingdom, we

realize that we are an important part of what's happening. Some day the
kids in our classrooms may get together and talk about their teachers and
what effect we had on their lives. What will they say about our influence?

The Role of Shepherd

I Peter was written to people who were internationally mobile--

people in transition. It addresses specific elements of leadership that are
applicable to how we survive and how we succeed as mobile people. To
understand I Peter better, we need to recall what Jesus said to Peter,
"Follow me and I will make you fishers of men." Fishing was a very
respected vocation in that time and place. Peter was a professional, and he
was doing what was expected by maintaining the family craft and business.
However, the authoritative call of Jesus resulted in Peter's leaving his nets.

After Jesus' death and resurrection, Peter went back to his fishing

again. He must have been totally confused, needing to return to something
he knew how to handle. Jesus met him there; they had breakfast together
and had a very serious conversation. Jesus said, "Peter, do you love me?"
"You know that I love you." "Feed my sheep." The same exchange was
repeated three times. But fishermen don't feed sheep! Shepherds feed
sheep. We have a career change for Peter!

Peter himself wrote years later to the elders and called them shepherds

(I Peter 5:1ff). It was no big deal to be a shepherd. Sheep-herding was far
from a respected profession. 2000 years ago, if you were a shepherd and
were an eyewitness to a crime, you could not give witness in court because
you weren't important. Peter was saying, be a shepherd in the spirit of
Matthew 20--if you want to be first you need to be last.

When we look at the meaning of being a shepherd in the context of

care for missionary kids, there are four important roles of shepherds:

·

a defender

--someone who protects children and youth.

Sometimes we protect them from ourselves, from our own sinful
tendencies. If we can't see God taking control in our lives of things that
may affect children adversely, then we need to get out of this business. It's
better to pack up and leave than to cause those little ones to stumble.

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Sometimes we have to defend students against others. I can't tell you

the horror stories I have heard over the years. If you are where you know
that kids are being abused in any way, you dare not walk away with your

mouth shut. Chapter 49 of this volume, titled "You Are a

Protector." deals with this in more detail.

Part of being a defender is protecting kids against cultural insensi-

tivity, which hurts deeply and leaves lasting scars. Educators need to find
out the means by which a culture motivates its children's education. It is
very different from one culture to another. If the kids come from another
culture, they and their parents may be confused about what the teacher is
trying to do in the classroom. If one culture dominates in a school, we need
to remind parents that students and teachers carry their cultural values into
the classroom. Truth in advertising is important.

Cultural insensitivity may be expressed through humor. What may be

a side-splitting joke in one culture is very offensive in another. I have
talked to kids who have been not just offended, but bruised deeply because
of what other people consider humor in their culture. When we cause
somebody to lose face, or the joke is not funny to everyone, then it's just
not funny. We need to be sensitive to the issues of humor and be prepared
to apologize in humility when we err. We need to protect children against
the insensitivity of adults as well as their peers.

In our counseling we need to defend. Many MK/TCK workers come

from individualistic societies, and are counseling kids from collectivistic
societies. Caution must be used in counseling to avoid difficulties in
relationships. A young guy says he likes someone and wants to date her,
but his parents object. The individualist says, "Hey, it's your life!" In a
collective society, it's not just his life, but a matter for the whole family
and community. When we counsel, we have to protect those kids against
our own cultural biases.

The role of teacher or administrator carries more authority and power

in one culture than in another. The teacher from a culture characterized by
"small power distance," where fear and respect are not equated with the
role, may unintentionally misuse the strength of that position in dealing
with a young person from a culture where there is "large power distance."

Discipleship: The Kingdom Perspective

31

A lot of things can undermine, discourage, and defeat young people.

Part of our task is to defend kids against discouragement, to come along-
side and encourage them when they're down, and comfort them in their
pain. Part of loving is to protect the individual and the unity of the body of
believers. We do not defend the unity of the body with physical strength,
power, and toughness, but with the demonstration of loving each other in
obedience to the Lord Jesus.

·

a discipler and a developer

--someone who is a mentor, helping

kids develop so they can take all the skills and abilities of the third-culture
experience and put them into practice throughout their lives.

A discipler enables someone else to be and accomplish. The leader is

a catalyst who passes ideas on to others, comes alongside someone else,
helps him or her grasp a vision, and then says, "How can I help you do it?
What resources and encouragement do you need to help you move in that
direction?"

Discipleship is not simply a cognitive exercise, the hearing and

committing to a mental process--a list of constructs. It is the affective
processing of what one has been taught, where one becomes a "doer of the
word and not a hearer only" (Mark 3:14). Jesus called his disciples to be
with him so he would walk with them through the flow of life's experiences
before sending them out. The Christian educator or caregiver, as a
discipler, walks through life experiences with young people. It is not only
hearing what the discipler says, but seeing and experiencing what he or she
does that becomes the matrix for development. In walking with students
through practical community ministry, a teacher can demonstrate his own
growth and encourage similar growth in the student.

· a dreamer--someone who sees what a student could become and

dreams on his behalf. Leadership involves dreaming for other people.
What can they be? What kind of investment can we make in their lives to
set them free to be what God has intended?

Do you know what an overseer does? Sees over. You can always tell

the difference between the shepherd and the sheep because the shepherd is
the guy who stands on his hind legs. The sheep are on all fours, grubbing
around in the grass. The shepherd stands up tall and sees the green
pastures, the still waters, the rock ledges, and the predators in the bushes.

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He sees the brambles where wool can be pulled out of the hide of his
animals. He dreams on their behalf, for their protection, for what they can
be. He sees beyond for them.

What's your vision for the kids in your classroom or dormitory?

When you see that squealing kid, the one who drives you nuts, do you ever
think that the most bothersome kids are often the ones to shake the world
because they've got enough gumption to do so? Are you dreamers for the
kids you have, or are you just churning them through their educational
experience?

·

a demonstrator

--Peter says, "be an example to the flock."

Students need to see Jesus Christ at work in you. They need to see you
demonstrating the love of Christ, because then they will learn how to do it.
The whole concept of the flow of care is doing the right thing at the right
time for the third-culture kid. You will influence kids because they will be
able to say, "I know what it is to be a good teacher or caregiver, because I
have some models." Are you doing what God has given you to do? Have
you really grabbed hold of it and said, "This is my task. I'm going to do it,
and do it well, for Christ's sake"?

Those who work with third-culture kids have a part to play in world

evangelism. Bear in mind that Jesus' strategy was "that you love one
another." The Great Commandment and the Great Commission are
inseparable, and in working with MKs and other TCKs we have the
greatest opportunity to demonstrate both.

I pray that God will excite our hearts and minds, and that we will

recognize that God has placed us in a unique role of being able to invest in
the lives of third-culture kids, and in doing that, to affect the Kingdom for
eternity. We can't even begin to imagine what that means, but we can
allow ourselves to be used in a dynamic way as we follow closely in Jesus'
footsteps.

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4.

Developing a Flow of Care

David C. Pollock

Recently I watched a spring bubbling from the ground along a

footpath in the woods. It formed a small pool and flowed out into two
streams that tumbled down a hill. In the natural scheme of things, they
would ultimately meet each other, and in their flowing and growing would
nourish, refresh, cleanse, sustain, and give life overall.

As I get older, I have a sense of the importance of clarifying the

history, present activity, and future direction of my life. Perhaps to some
degree it is to justify it, sometimes to order it, and even to simplify it.
Mostly, however, it is an effort to contribute to those who follow. Maybe it
is an attempt to sort the gold and silver from wood and hay. Whatever the
motivator, springs and rivulets give me a significant metaphor for my life
as an individual and for the Body of Christ. One source and two streams:
these blend into one flow to give life.

One Source

Paul captures the focal point of eternity and time as he writes "Christ

is the image of God"--creator, initiator, sustainer, head of the body,
reconciler and perfecter (Col. 1:1523). Thinking in a Christian way begins
and ends with a comprehensive view of Christ. Recognizing who Christ is
fulfills Peter's directive to be "clear-minded" (1 Pet. 4:7). Peter did this in
responding to Jesus' question in Matthew 16:15, "Who do you say that I
am?" The answer to that question lays the foundation for the remainder of
Peter's admonition to "those scattered abroad . . . Be clear-minded,
self-controlled so that you can pray and love one another deeply." The
progression is from thinking and believing right to choosing, acting, and
loving right.

James (1:5) captures the concept of thinking right with his admonition

to seek godly wisdom. The main issue in that wisdom is clearly perceiving
the person, Jesus. Once established, the reasonable conclusion is that we
become doers and not hearers only. James pushes us

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to recognize that sin is not only doing the wrong but it is knowing what is
good and not doing it (4:17).

In his first letter, John indicates that the identity of a believer is

determined by observing if he thinks (believes) right about Jesus, chooses
right, and loves right. He builds his criteria on the basis of the person of
Jesus Christ himself who is light, life, and love. John's introduction to this
book (1 John 1:3) states "We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard
(clear-minded) so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our
fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ."

Jesus is the spring, the source of whom his Father said, "This is my

beloved son...Listen to him" (Luke 9:35). We must listen to Jesus when he
prays (John 17: 2123), "Father, just as you are in me and I am in you,
may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we
are one . . . I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity
to let the world know you sent me." Isn't this unity in how we think, how
we choose, and how we love? Jesus is the source and he sets the flow of
the two streams. Listen to his commands.

Stream One

"A new commandment I give to you that you love one another. By this

will all people know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
"If you love me you will obey what I command." "This is my command:
Love each other" (John 13:345; 14:15; 15:17).

The irrefutable evidence of God's supernatural intervention in human

affairs confronts a lost mankind through the action of a believer on behalf
of another person for the other's good. It is the demonstration of God's
character in the people he has reconciled to himself and to each other. Love
is the stuff his people are made of.

· "For God so loved the world that He gave . . ." (John 3:16).

· "God demonstrates His love for us . . ." (Rom. 5:8).

· "Love your neighbor as your self" (Luke10:27).

· "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt.

5:44).

Developing a Flow of Care

35

· "If your enemy is hungry, feed him" (Rom.12:20).

· "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the

law of Christ" (Gal.6:2).

Stream Two

"As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21). "All

authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go (and
as you are going) make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:1820).

The two streams, the Great Commandment and the Great Commis-

sion, are inseparable. Sometimes in our zeal to be responsive to one we
ignore or minimize the other. The Great Commission cannot be fulfilled
without obedience to the Great Commandment. The evidence to the
watching world is the fulfillment of God's command. Ultimately, the dis-
cipling of that world is focused on directing the new believer to obedience
to that command.

Is it possible that the Great Commission is more easily obeyed than

the Great Commandment? Defining love as action on behalf of another--
even an enemy--may be a sticking point for all of us. The good Samaritan
was faced with expenditure of time and money, inconvenience, readjusting
priorities, and perhaps even disdain from the one he rescued. Would it be
less demanding to be a priest or Levite slipping by to do some teaching or
preaching, or to perform some act of worship in the synagogue?

Our struggle in the missions community may be somewhat like the

travelers from Jerusalem to Jericho. We don't have a list of specific
reasons why two of the three fellow travelers "passed by on the other side
of the road." Their identity, as priest and Levite, may be a clue to their
reasons. Perhaps it related to their religious position. Perhaps they even
had religious tasks to perform that could not be ignored. Perhaps they had a
great commission to obey and they could not allow themselves to be
sidetracked. Jesus' evaluation shakes me to my roots. Many times when a
task I perceived as obedience to the Great Commission preempted
obedience to the Great Commandment. I live with reminders of the results
in my life and the lives of others.

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Failure to respond to the Great Commandment removes the most

convincing piece of divinely appointed evidence that Jesus is the Christ, the
son of the living God, and that we are his disciples. But there's more. It
leaves a weaker brother and sister open to discouragement, failure, and
brokenness. It makes lonely coworkers vulnerable to attack and breakdown.
It undermines the relationships of those attempting to respond to the Great
Commission and diminishes their effectiveness. In missions, much of the
attrition, with its waste of people and resources, is readily traceable to our
failure to intervene appropriately at the right places in the life of the
missionary, the family as a whole, and missionary kids. It is important to
remember that obedience to the Great Commandment in the missions
context is not simply a matter of pragmatism and damage control. It is
obedience to Christ's command.

How do we in the missions community, who are committed to the

source, navigate both streams successfully? The starting point is full-
hearted acknowledgement of the biblical mandate and unreserved obedi-
ence to the source. Thinking right moves to choosing right and flows
readily to acting right.

The Samaritan on his way to Jericho immediately evaluated the

situation and took action to correct the problem. The action was both
immediate and long term, in view of both rescue and recovery. Had he been
there sooner he might have intervened to prevent everyone's grief and pain.
Love is preventative as well as therapeutic. We start by identifying the
points of where intervention can be preventative, recognize the places
where care and comfort are required, and plan for the therapeutic when
required. We must consider the flow of care for the individual from "so
send I you" to the "come home to your rest" of the Lord Jesus.

The Flow of Care

If we listen to the needs and issues expressed by experienced

personnel, the details of the flow of care will increase and be refined, and
modified and customized in the process of change . The next chapter of this
book suggests ways to provide the flow of care for MKs and missionary
families.

Developing a Flow of Care

37

The concept of the flow of care was the theme and foundation of the

first International Conference on Missionary Kids (ICMK) in Manila in
1984. Within a short time the Family Liaison Office of the U.S. State
Department and the Foreign Service Youth Foundation adopted the idea as
basic to their program of assistance to foreign service families. Many in the
business community who wanted to improve the "bottom line" by
increasing efficiency and effectiveness and minimizing unnecessary
attrition are expressing interest in the techniques of delivering care to their
personnel. There is also a growing interest in developing the leadership
potential of young people growing up in the "third culture" or expatriate
community. Organizations such as Emerging Young Leaders are very
aware that such development requires a caring support system.

Conclusions

For us who flow on the crest of two streams from the same source

there should be no question about our enthusiastic (God within) partici-
pation in such. The Great Commandment and the Great Commission are
inseparable. To do it requires a cooperative commitment of administrators
and boards of directors. It will also require the cooperation and coord-
ination of support personnel and organizations to provide the expertise for
application at the significant points of intervention. A well-planned
approach to the life of the missionary and other international personnel in
order to facilitate the "flow of care" is not a far-fetched concept when we
realize how much is at stake and see how responsive it is to the basic issues
of the will of God.

Do it!

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, October

1997.

Part III:

Understanding
MKs and TCKs

39

Resolution I

MK/TCK Profile

Whereas ICMK Manila expanded an awareness that there are
differences between children who live in a monocultural, non-
missions environment and MKs raised in the multicultural
missions community, and

Whereas ICMK Quito focused on the implications of the
differences between children who are raised in the parents' home
country and the MKs who are raised in a country where their
parents are not citizens,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi commit themselves to identify
further and implement specific steps which will enhance the
advantages and address the effects of the disadvantages of living
in the monocultural context of the missions community.

Resolution II

Potential of the MK/TCK

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi commit themselves to design
and implement specific programs to affirm and enhance the
unique potential of MKs and to encourage effective uses of the
unique opportunities that growing up multiculturally and
multilingually affords to children.

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5.

Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile

David C. Pollock

People on the move are not new in the experience of human history.

Nomadic tribes follow from one food source or grazing spot to another.
Partial groups of people are taken into captivity after defeat. Persecution
and escape from natural disaster or famine have caused mobility, but
usually other people of your own "tribe" move with you. The Abraham-
type mobility, splitting a family, was common after World War II when
improved transportation, expanded world awareness, and visions of global
commerce triggered the mobility of individuals and families.

People living and working another culture today are affected not only

by the host culture but the cultures of colleagues from other places. While
remaining, for the most part, evident members of their home or passport
cultures, their world view, values, flexibility, and intercultural abilities re
altered. They are not truly members of their new culture(s) or place(s) of
residence (Culture 2), but they are not what they would have been had they
remained in their own country (Culture 1). These people have become
members of a "third culture" and their children are "third culture kids."

The term third-culture kid is not a new one. It originated about forty

years ago with Dr. Ruth Useem, a sociologist at Michigan State University.
She and her husband were doing intensive work with U.S. business and
government families on overseas assignments. While working with the
adults, she also had an opportunity to observe the kids. She said, "There's
something different about these kids. They function at a whole different
level. They think differently. They have a different base, and a different
point of reference." She coined the term third-culture kid.

Some have reacted negatively to the term either at an intellectual or

emotional level. The term may be inadequate to meet sociological or
anthropological demands, but it has given us a point of reference and has
given the people who identify with this new "tribe" a point of identity and
belonging. Whether or not calling this group a culture is accurate, the fact
remains that those who fulfill the definition share characteristics and
perspectives that bind them together.

Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile

41

I was doing a seminar with foreign service kids some time ago, and

one girl said, "When I sit down in the public school in Fairfax, Virginia,
everybody else is saying, `I went to such and such a place during the
summer vacation.' But when I say, `When I was in Paris in July...' the
conversation comes to an end. But that's where I was in July! If I'm going
to talk about my life's experiences, they relate to where I've been. They're
a part of the geography, part of the whole culture. I'm not trying to be
smart or put anybody down. I listen to everybody else share their
experiences, but I can't say anything. When I do, it either stops the
conversation, or somebody backs off, and I realize that I've made another
social faux pas. It really hurts."

She was in a group of thirty-five kids packed into a very small living

room, absolutely delighted because she could do what third-culture kids
can do with each other. She could say, "When I was in..." and the other
kid could say, "And when I was in...." Nobody threatened anybody or was
seen as arrogant. One of the delights of being a third-culture kid is finding
other third-culture kids.

The general working definition for a third-culture kid is an individual

who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years in a
culture other than that of the parents, resulting in integration of elements
from both the host culture and parental culture into a third culture. The key
words in this definition need to be explained:

Individual.

Each person will respond differently to the experiences

of life. Personality and temperament, experiences and perception, age
when experiences occur, position and role in the family, to name a few, are
variables in each person resulting in individualized reaction and response.

Significant.

The amount of time for an individual to take on the

characteristics of a Third-Culture Kid (TCK) varies with the individual.

Developmental.

This is the issue which makes the experience of a

young person different from that of the parent. Mobility, and the impact of
a variety of cultural influences, will shape a developing individual more
profoundly than the mature adult can usually imagine.

When we explore the characteristics of TCKs, it is important to

recognize that we are exploring tendencies. No two TCKs will have the
exact experiences or perceive them the same. The variables mentioned

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above will shape TCKs differently as do the variables in any cultural
group. For example, a person who has been in Ecuador from the age of
one to the age of seven is not going to be impacted the same as the person
who has been there from age one to eighteen. Another individual who
comes at seven and leaves at eighteen will be on still a different footing.
The period of development during which the person was in the other
culture will determine the details.

Going home for the third-culture kid is not going home as his parents

perceive it. If the parents are assigned to their "home" country for a year,
the young person actually goes home at the end of the year when they all
return to the overseas location.

In the Middle

Often the TCK lives with a sense of being "in the middle." Some

years ago a college student named Ruth Goring wrote an essay entitled "I
Am Green." She said that she was neither the "blue" culture of her
passport county nor the "yellow" culture of the host country. She was
somehow a mix of the two (see Chapter 6).

There are other people who find themselves caught in a crack between

passport and host countries. They are touched by both and identify with
both, yet without a sense of being owned or owning either one.

In either case, TCKs often find they are at home everywhere and

nowhere, all at the same time. Home may always be elsewhere, and a sense
of rootedness at any point of geography may be unknown. One learns to
adjust, survive, and succeed, but the sense of "place" is elusive.

Parents may be former missionaries, former foreign service people, or

former international business people, but their kids will never be former
third-culture kids. That identity doesn't stop because Mom and Dad to
back to Hometown, USA.

Pain often results when an individual returns to his home country at

the age of twelve or thirteen. By the time he is in high school, he may be
far enough away from that experience to decide that he no longer can
identify himself with third-culture kids. If he happens to be on a college
campus where third-culture kids have a group that meets, he may stand at

Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile

43

the edge, having the sense that somehow he belongs there, but insists, "I
don't belong."

I met a fellow who came to one of the seminars we were doing in the

Midwest on third-culture kids. He said, "That's me. I'm a third culture
kid. All the lights went on. But I really am not, because I was twelve when
we came home."

I said, "That doesn't change anything. You're still a third-culture

kid." (He is no longer a kid--that's another problem with the term.) He
said, "Do you mean that I really am a part?"

After the session I went to the lobby and sat down, and third-culture

kids came from all over the place. As the fellow I had been talking to
walked into the room, he hesitated at the back of the group for a moment,
then made his way through, and sat on the floor right in the middle. He
was as happy as a pig in the mud. He joined the conversation and talked
about his experiences of coming home, and how painful it was not to go
back or to have had a chance to say good-bye, and on and on. He came up
to me afterward and said, "This is the first time since I was twelve that I
have felt that I belonged."

Our tendency is to think that children have unlimited

resilience.

You can do anything with kids and they bounce and they adjust. Sure they
do. We're all made to adjust, and adjustment does take place. Whether on
not it's good adjustment, and whether or not it leaves a residue of pain, is a
different matter. When a kid at five years of age is taken away from an
ayah

and brought back to the United states, he may have suddenly lost

someone who was extremely important. That ayah may have played a role
in the child's live that was very close to, or maybe superseded the
relationship with the mother. We have to bear in mind that these are real
live people who have real live feelings and real live memories.

It's also important to emphasize that third-culture kids have the same

needs as every other human being. They are no different from anyone else.
Being very mobile and living in a cross-cultural setting creates
complexities in the meeting of those needs. Individual personalities have
various levels of resilience. That resilience has limits but it can also be
enhanced and supported by wise and informed caregivers.

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It is important to remember that there is a third-culturedness inside the

borders of one's own country. I was doing a seminar in Addis Ababa, and
a Kenyan in foreign service said, "I was never outside my country as a
teenager, but my father was involved in government, and we moved from
tribal area to tribal area. This sounds like me." It may be that some people
moving from Massachusetts to California have moved from one deeply
rooted and distinct culture to a very different culture. There may be "third
culture-ness" inside national borders that produces experiences similar to
the international TCK.

There are other variations in the TCK experience. Let me go to the

Department of Defense as an illustration. Even though the American
bubble is carried along with the military, there is a military culture and
there is an American culture. An individual may find herself crossed
between those two cultures. Basically it's still American culture, but the
subculture of the military presents a different set of values that influence
the individual. She is the product of two cultural influences in her life as
well as the high mobility of the military community.

There are some third-culture kids who try not to identify with other

third-culture kids in their home country because they are reminded of the
hurts they carry with them. Some try desperately to fit in, because
someone has communicated to them that it's really not OK to be a third-
culture kid. "If you're going back to your own country, be like the kids
there."

Tendencies: A Profile of TCK-ness

The two major overlays or categories of influence for the TCK are 1)

transition from mobility and 2) the transcultural experience. Both
influences have significant benefits for most people but at the same time
both produce challenges that must be recognized and addressed.

Overlay #1: Mobility.

Most TCKs develop significant flexibility and

adaptability. Seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling new things is a way of
live for most and contributes to their ability to accept and adjust to what is
new and different. This significant benefit, coupled with their experience,
if not habit, of moving frequently or regularly, contributes to a sense of
rootlessness. Belonging everywhere and nowhere has a major impact on

Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile

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one's identity. Home is always "elsewhere" for many TCKs and they often
long to get to the "other place" in order to feel at home.

For some, the struggle with identity and belonging is intensified when

they still have a sense of belonging overseas after having returned to their
passport country. Some say or imply that the TCK must "get over" their
TCK-ness and fit in with (become exactly like) the people in the passport
country. Return as a younger child may also contribute to the individual's
belief that his TCK-ness in invalid.

The solution for many is to recognize that other third-culture kids are

their "tribe." Others who share the experiences of growing up in a culture
other than their own make up this "tribe." Beyond belonging to the tribe,
the individual needs to recognize that the TCK effect is not a disease.
Responses are understandable and normal, given the influences and
experiences.

Frequent and regular mobility, broad world perspective, rich

memories, and a confidence in change, may all contribute to a migratory
instinct. Mobility is not wrong, but being victimized by it may be
destructive to individuals and those around them. Moves during
educational years may be deeply disruptive. Career paths can be frustrated
by moving too soon and too often. Members of the family of origin may be
stressed by the lack of stability and lack of proximity.

The nuclear family subsequently formed by the TCK may also fall

victim to frequent relocation. This may undermine the relationship of the
couple and in turn may create undue and destructive tension with their
children. Such mobility makes long-term planning difficult, intensifying
the tendency to focus on the "now" without being free to make proper and
reasonable choices for the future. Some TCKs fail to plan for the future or
to make their preferences known because their mobility as children often
preempted desires and choices made, leaving them disappointed and sad.
Many learn to cope by refusing to reveal preferences and solid plans for the
future.

TCKs seem to find their rootedness in relationship rather than in

geography. When they consider where they belong, they think in terms of
people rather than place. They generally value relationships highly, but

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also have the sense that loss comes to all at some time. For some, there
may be a chronic sense of impermanence and dread of anticipated loss.

The result of this combination of effects is something of a paradox.

On the one hand, TCKs tend to develop friendships fairly quickly and an a
deeper level than most non-TCKs. They have had practice doing it--living
live enriched by communication and the sense of urgency because of
mobility. On the other hand, TCKs may be guarded in developing
relationships and careful not to allow others to know them too well and
thus become too vulnerable. When you move, you may not want to leave
unguarded information in the hands of people who no longer feel a loyalty
to you. They may also limit intimacy to reduce the pain of separation.
Such responses may be appropriate in the normal flow of a mobile lifestyle.
The problems arise when these habits are carried into relationships such as
the family of origin, marriage, parenting, and deeper lifetime friendships.

Because of the regular experience of leaving or being left, highly

mobile young people may develop a "quick release response." When there
is a hint of another separation, real or suspected, the TCK may let go of a
relationship too soon and too fast. This is a defense against the pain of
separation, but it can be destructive to relationships that could be long and
meaningful.

Unresolved grief is not an uncommon result of a TCK's multiple

losses. The lack of permission to grieve, time to process grief, or people to
empathize and comfort, may result in repression of grief. Anger,
depression, over-sympathizing with others in grief, and sometimes delayed
grief responses triggered by what may seem insignificant losses may be
indicators of unresolved grief.

The TCK often develops a strong independence. The ability to

function on one's own is one of the necessities of mobility. However, when
independence goes unchecked, isolation from others can produce
unnecessary and inappropriate loneliness.

Dr. Ruth Useem noted in her research that it was not unusual for

TCKs to experience what she called "delayed adolescence and delayed
adolescent rebellion." There may be several factors related to both
mobility and cultural exposure that contribute to this. The TCK may be
actually more mature than the peer counterpart in the country of origin.

Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile

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Factors contributing to this maturity include expectations and demands for
certain behavior, relationship to adults in the international community,
independence, communication skills (including multiple language ability),
and knowledge based on a "big world" exposure.

There is uneven maturity, however, because of knowledge of one's

passport culture and its ways may be limited, with gaps in social skills,
interpersonal relationships, humor, and general rules of cultural behavior
and etiquette. Sometimes there is the overlay of "grieving one's
childhood," wherein the individual discovers certain aspects of experience
and relationships that were nonexistent or deficient in the place where he or
she grew up. There may be a longing to experience what others in the
"home" culture had.

Delayed adolescent rebellion may be the result, not of rebellion, but an

emotionally charged combination of unresolved grief, anger, and
loneliness, and no longer sensing the need to be compliant. TCKs need to
know that such a response may emerge in their early twenties. It does not
necessarily damage one's life unless rash decisions are made or actions
taken which have irreversible or far reaching consequences.

Over the long haul of one's life, the benefits of mobility can far

outweigh the difficulties. But the challenges must be addressed both
before and when they arise. Knowing the dangers allows us to make better
choices.

Overlay #2: Cultural Exposure.

A TCK may respond in a variety of

ways and intensities to multicultural input. Parents' attitudes and behavior,
agency policies, and the individual's personality and attitudes are some of
the variables which determine cultural influence beyond the forcefulness of
the culture itself. Influences include the parents' passport culture or
cultures, the culture of the sponsoring agency, the school or schools
attended, the host culture itself, caregivers, and the expatriate (third-
culture) community itself.

The greatest benefit is the world view developed by most TCKs. It is

three-dimensional, with not only knowledge but understanding and
empathy. The sense of security in getting around in the world and acting
appropriately in it is significant preparation. The person can become a

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cultural bridge and an active, positive influence in an increasingly
intercultural world.

Challenges include the pain of seeing the real world with its hunger,

sickness, cruelty, injustice, war, and death. The TCK often sees the world
very differently than those who have never "been there." Another
challenge is dealing with people who have not had travel opportunities.
TCKs may appear to be less patriotic or loyal to their country of passport
because of a broader experience, and seeing that country from a different
perspective. They may also be impatient with others because of their lack
of experience, willing ignorance, or limited perspective. The TCK is
challenged to be patient and understanding of those who have had less
opportunity.

There is a serious need to be aware of and guard against the tendency

to be arrogant about one's experience and knowledge. Sometimes it helps
to remember that the TCK did not usually have this broad experience by
choice, but rather as the product of parental decisions. Nor is the
monocultural person usually that way by choice, but the product of parental
choices and opportunities.

TCKs can recognize that the monocultural person usually knows

things about one culture that they may need to learn, while the TCK has
cultural knowledge from outside. Such knowledge serves TCKs well in
many situations in life, but they may feel like "hidden immigrants" in their
passport country. The sense of being off balance because of unknown
history, rules, people, or humor, can be a shock to some. A lack of
understanding of home country values--and sometimes conflict with
them--creates a sense of being an alien. A Korean TCK said "I think I am
more comfortable as a foreigner in a foreign country than being a disguised
stranger in my own country."

TCKs as adaptable, flexible observers are sensitive to prejudice, and

tend to be compliant and suspend judgment of others. They can be
"cultural bridges" and mentors for others' attempts to more cross-
culturally. The stress of being caught in the middle of cultural difference is
a challenge, but the skills and insights of TCKs made them extremely
important in today's world. Language skills need to be valued, developed,
and used in connection with cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Being a Third-Culture Kid: A Profile

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As Ted Ward has been quoted, "The TCK of today is he prototype of

the citizen of the twenty-first century." The TCK is also a person of the
twentieth century and a culture broker in a changing, demanding future.

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6.

I Am Green

Ruth Goring

I. I Wish

Growing up between two cultures
is a tense
liberating frustrating
bruising hilarious exciting
experience.

I feel like a perpetual visitor
always a transient, never wholly a part
"cultural relativism" is all very well, but
sometimes I wish I could identify completely
with something, some group, somewhere . . .

II. U.S.A.

grassy tree-lined suburban streets
lawnmowers, defrosters, supermarkets, pizza
Chevrolets, chocolate-chip cookies, clocks and calendars
shorts and T-shirts, "Love American Style"

distance
cold
dry
sarcastic
always new activities,
new possessions
I am a consumer.

I move through
laugh, cringe, grow, plan
buy, complain, enjoy
but still--only a visitor.

I Am Green

51

III. Latin America

mountains tower over this narrow, bursting city
music, buses, waiting, radios, bodies
an always-audience of dark faces
warmth crowds, car horns, hurt feelings

touch
rhythm
frustration
support
hurt me
always expecting so much out of me
I am a spectacle.

I live through
speak, cry, walk, wonder
love, hate, push
but still don't quite belong.

IV. I Am Green

one life is navy blue
one life is sunshine yellow

I am green

V. Where

Is there a place
where
I can be green?

VI. Perhaps . . . the Church

we who are many are one body.

1 Cor. 10:17

there are varieties of gifts
but the same Spirit.

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and there are varieties of ministries
and the same Lord.
and there are varieties of effects
but the same God who works
all things in all persons.
now there are many members
but one body.

1 Cor. 12:46, 20

There is neither Jew nor Greek
there is neither slave nor free man
there is neither male nor female
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Gal. 3:28

VII. Let Us

Give me a place to be green.
Be green with me, or perhaps
red orange purple blue
pink yellow olive rose
lilac maroon pumpkin beige
magenta camel turquoise violet

Let us adapt, shade, blend, combine.
Let us be bright as we dare.
Let us admire, complement one another.

Let us splash ourselves boldly
across the drab canvas of life.

Let us be gardens
balloons
sunsets
tapestries
plaids and polka-dots
rainbows
rising, expanding, shouting
in praise to God.

I Am Green

53

Copyright 1989 by Ruth Goring Stewart. Used by permission. All rights reserved;
please do not duplicate without the author's permission. Individual copies may be
obtained from E.D. Publishing, 336 Lilac Drive, El Cajon, CA 92021, U.S.A.

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7.
The Real Value
of Growing Up Overseas

Michael G. Loftis

They say you can tell how much international experience a child has

by asking him a simple question, "What color is money?" Many American
kids will look at you like you are crazy for asking such an obvious
question. Most MKs I know will reply with another question, "What
country are you talking about?"

The year was 1967. My parents had just made a decision that was

earth shattering to a thirteen-year-old boy. They decided to become
"missionaries." How could I leave junior high school, the security of my
friendships, and all the wonderful things promised to a boy that age in the
good old USA? I soon found out there were many facets to the gem that
God wanted to chisel from the surface of my life.

At first I struggled with the downside of our family's decision. I

thought about all we had "given up" to go down to a Caribbean island to
evangelize a group of people who seemed happy enough without the
Gospel. Why did we have to go?

My parents did their best. They talked about the wonderful adventure

this missionary episode was going to be in our family life. My older sister
and I rolled our eyes at one another. Parents can be so simple sometimes.
How could they understand what we were missing? We thought about that
a lot. We received letters from our friends back home talking about football
games, cars, dates, Vietnam War protests at school, drug problems among
their friends, angry discussions with their parents over dress codes and
music styles, moral looseness, open debate in speech class about the merits
of abortion, gay rights, and women's liberation.

Life Overseas

Meanwhile we attended separate schools for girls and boys, wore

uniforms, and stood at attention when the teacher entered the room until we
were told to sit. We had to study Latin, Algebra, Chemistry, French,

Real Value of Growing Up Overseas

55

Literature, Physics, Biology, and countless other useless topics. Along the
way I learned to love and play the world's number one sport, soccer. We
didn't have any workers at the little church my dad started, so I taught
Sunday school to pre-schoolers from the time I was about fourteen. We
also had no adult youth workers at our church, so my sister and I led our
youth group of between 25 and 30 teenagers. Along the way we learned to
speak the local dialect, won a national music competition for teenagers,
counseled at junior camp, helped our mom start a youth choir, worked on
church and camp construction projects, and even drove the van to pick up
children for church and Sunday school. Some adventure.

Back home in the States, our friends wrote us letters about racial

conflicts at school. The "Black Power" movement grabbed national head-
lines. I attended a school of 1,000 boys where I was one of only four whites
in the student body. My best friends came from African, Indian, Chinese,
and Armenian heritages. Most of my friends were of mixed parentage.
Many never knew their fathers. Everyone was poor. They called me the
"rich white boy from America." I resented that. Didn't everyone know my
dad was a preacher? Back home no one ever called me rich. My parents
could never afford to buy all the latest teen fads in brand-name clothes and
shoes that created instant status and acceptance at school. Didn't these
people understand that?

Re-Entry

The day came for our family to return to the United States on furlough

and suddenly I didn't want to go back there. This warm place filled with
smiling faces and all colors of skin was truly home to me, not that place
where I no longer fit or played their silly social games for status. God was
slowly chiseling me into a world-conscious Christian.

Coming home to attend college was at first an intimidating

experience. After all, my peers were for the most part veterans of the status
wars they had battled in high schools back home. Dating was a moral and
cultural no-no down in the islands. Here it was the ultimate in status
seeking and personal fulfillment. Once again I found myself struggling
against values I resented, and they were supposed to represent my own
home culture. Where I didn't struggle was in class. My education at the
old-fashioned British school began to pay dividends in my studies. While

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my friends were figuring out how to get a date with the cutest girl, I was
testing out of French and math. My background didn't hurt on the field
either, where I was able to play four years of varsity soccer with other MKs
and international students. I auditioned and sang with a traveling choir and
began to seek out ministry among inner city children.

Along the way, I completed a doctorate and began to teach in college

and seminary. My heart was always drawn to the plight of MKs and
international students trying to adjust to life back in the States. I never
worried about anyone's expectations for me to become a missionary like
my dad because we have such different personalities. Following ten years
of fulfilling ministry teaching groups of stimulating college young people,
it happened.

MKs and Ministry

I was invited to visit Romania with a ministry team. There God

squeezed my heart with the needs of a nation through the simple but pro-
found words of a Romanian man of God I still consider to be a good friend.
As I pondered the possibility of bringing back some of my students to
experience the faith and perseverance of these generous saints who had
endured persecution for their faith, this man challenged my assumption.
"We don't need students," he said quietly. "It is teachers we need to train a
new generation of Christian leaders." He had me. And so did God. I chose
to come back to the mission field, but not because of some expectation or
pressure from my parents or others.

Looking back now, I am awed at the wisdom of God in providing for

me the absolute best in preparation for developing a world-Christian
attitude. I instinctively look at so many things that happen in America from
an outsider's point of view. I learned the ways of the street; to study the
eyes, the posture, the gestures, the nonverbal but powerful language of life.
I learned not to worry about making funny sounds in order to communicate
in another person's language. Do MKs make a good missionaries? I
suspect they make the best kind.

I learned to laugh at myself. Nobody laughs and cries more than a real

missionary. Our family did lots of both. We worked hard, played hard,
laughed loudly, served long hours, and loved people all around us.
Eventually they loved us back. But not all. There were personality con-

Real Value of Growing Up Overseas

57

flicts, inter-mission disputes, and intramission politics. After a number of
years in missions there, my dad was driven from the islands during a
socialist revolution under false accusations of spying for the CIA. No
matter. Today there stands a strong self-supporting church in that city and
it touches hundreds of lives. Bitter? No way.

Reflections of an Adult MK

As an MK, if I learned nothing else I learned to be flexible. I learned

that foreign is only a word. Every culture in the world is foreign to
someone. At first it's scary, then irritating, then maddening. To survive you
have to grab it, fall in love with it, and make it yours. God understands. He
did it too. Kinship with Christ is a special benefit of missionary life. How
must he have felt as he spoke to his own people who saw him only as a
misfit, not as an emissary from the throne of heaven? Perhaps this is the
greatest benefit and gift of being an MK, the opportunity to gain a glimpse
of God's world from his viewpoint. Today I regularly move in and out of
five or six countries, each having a different language. My own children
have now lived in four countries and use bits and pieces of three languages.
They will probably not even appreciate their background until they are at
least my age. My wife and I try to practice the principles which were
utilized in my home growing up: involve the whole family in ministry, do
lots of fun things together, don't hide all the pain, and share the rewards of
ministry.

Do we feel our children are deprived of a full life? They do miss their

grandparents and cousins. So we try to encourage them to write letters and
we send tapes and videotapes back and forth. Recently, my teenage son
looked at me and said with a grin, "Dad, you're just not cool at all!" In this
world full of wickedness racing away from God at breakneck speed, how
can I teach the essential survival skills to my children? Would my son's
statement about his dad's "coolness" have been any different had he been
raised solely in the USA? I doubt it. But for me that is not the main issue.
The most important part of my role in rearing my children is to provide
them with a chance to learn to see the world from God's perspective, to
face life realistically, and to flexibly meet high goals for the glory of God.
Will they make it? Nothing is guaranteed. But, go ahead, just ask my
children the color of money.

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Adapted with permission from Interact, October 1997.

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8.

The MK's Advantage:
Three Cultural Contexts

Ted Ward

I hold a very positive view of intercultural experience as foundational

in the development of fulfilled personhood in the modern complex world.
Consequently, I view the MK growing up experience as very positive and
very valuable, in comparison with the experiences available to their cousins
who are stuck back home.

Advantages of Growing Up Overseas

Growing up overseas represents at least three kinds of head start: first

of all, one of the most difficult problems in every Western society is the
problem of coping with interpersonal relationships. More jobs are lost,
more people drop out of school, and more people seek psychiatric help over
that issue than any other. I submit that the intercultural experience carries
with it the kind of flexibility that allows well-balanced young people to get
a head start in coping with interpersonal relationships.

Beyond that, the overseas experience provides a concrete awareness

of what the world is really like. Much tension and conflict in this world
arise out of an ethnocentrism that is totally unaware of and unconcerned
about the rest of the world.

There's another kind of head start, represented by the question, "What

will my kid do to make money in life?" There is a trend toward an
increased demand for internationally experienced young people to go into
international careers if they have broken the language barrier. International
experience and multilingual capability are more valuable than degrees in
today's marketplace.

Scars from Growing Up Interculturally

Growing up leaves damage. Growing up leaves scars. Life is like that.

But there is nothing wrong with us getting together to talk about those
scars and about ways to offset them. I refer to what I think of as the two

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key scars predictable in the intercultural growing up experience, whether
missionary or other. I think they are inevitable, and to some extent they are
painful and damaging, but so is life in any society.

Disorientation

I refer to the scars that are left by disorientation. There's a lot more

that we can do about that than we're currently doing. Take a moment to
imagine an experience that you and I could have together. We are together
in a large city. Neither one of us knows the city. You stand on one street
corner, and out of your sight I stand on another street corner. We each
decide that we will just stand on those street corners for four hours and see
how we feel at the end of the experience. Everyone walking by is a
stranger, with the exception of one friend who walks by your street corner
every thirty minutes and winks.

At the end of those four hours, I will be miserable; you will be

comfortable. What made the difference? The reorienting experience that
comes from involvement with other people, no matter how slight, through
which we reaffirm our identity and reestablish our sense of who we are.

We can do far more than we are doing now if we understand what

disorientation is and take more seriously the need for periodic orientation.
When my wife and I were travelling a lot with our small children,
periodically we would sit at breakfast in a strange place and say "Let's go
through this. Here's where we are. Here's why we're here. And here's
what's likely to happen." So far as my wife and I could make out, our kids
never really suffered much from disorientation.

Racism

The other scar that is perhaps inevitable is the scar left by racism.

Much that we do as expatriates can be seen as ethnocentric and racist. We
need to name it. We need to work on it because it's part of the sinful
tendency of human beings.

These scars are worth the price, but we should do what we can to

reduce them and to reduce their negative effects.

Our Goals for MKs

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However, we're after something far more significant than simply the

reduction of scars. We're after the power in life that comes from
disciplined resourcefulness. I will give you three to one any time on a
missionary kid over anybody else in terms of disciplined resourcefulness.
American kids today sometimes don't even know how to change the tire on
a car.

Another of the great positives we're after is culture-learning skills --

the capacity to learn culture. Just as you can learn how to do other things in
life, you can learn how to learn culture. That's a tremendously powerful
skill. It makes a person much more able to cope with the range and variety
of situations that life holds.

The third of these great bottom lines is flexibility--the capacity to

move internationally and interculturally and influence the world. Our young
people have this benefit.

Negative Stereotype

There's a terrible negative stereotype that has developed around this

whole business of growing up overseas. It is partly because of the
misunderstandings of some of our novelists, such as James Michener.

James Michener doesn't understand the missionary community, and

he understands MKs even less. His book Hawaii is deeply resented by the
native Hawaiian population. His premises are that the missionaries did
damage, and he makes even more of the fact that the MKs went bad. One
of the first great missionary activities, the Sandwich Island Mission, was
sponsored by a church in the United States, Park Street Church.

These missionaries took their families. That is an old American habit.

Once they got the kids out there and they started growing up, they got kind
of a second thought that said, "Oh, oh. What are we supposed to do now?"

You know what they did? That first group of Sandwich Island

missionaries built a high school for their kids so they would have social
interaction with nationals! They quickly reduced the Hawaiian language to
print, put together enough Hawaiian language books to get a number of
other kids ready, and within the fourth year of that mission in an illiterate
society, they had some native kids ready to go with their kids to the first
MK school ever established overseas. That school stands today in Maui. It

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is a public high school and has been in continuous use since it was first
built. The MKs didn't go home to Boston, because the families thought
that the very people that Jesus Christ had called them to were worthy to be
lived with.

Many of those MKs made the dreadful mistake, according to

Michener, of intermarrying with Hawaiians. Do you know that the great
first families of Hawaii have missionary grandmothers? Yes, indeed, the
MKs became involved in commerce, in shipping, and in agriculture. They
transformed that group of islands. They haven't done half the damage that
the tourists have done, and the Hawaiians know it. They entered into
society as the co-parents of an emerging culture.

I think even as Michener misunderstood missionaries, sometimes

missionaries misunderstand culture. I've heard the word culture used as a
static term to mean a kind of a thing that sits there. Culture, whatever else
it is, is not static. It's being human and moving in and out from here to
there, and being able to competently function in varieties of situations.
Human cultures are not to be abandoned so that we can become third
culture or anything else. Our cultures always profit from being expanded
and blended. Would that the missionary community could accept the
validity of expanding and blending their cultural ways with others.

Cultural Contexts of the MK

The MK is especially benefited by having three cultural contexts. Let

me point out that I am talking about three cultural contexts, not three
cultures.

The originator of the term TCK, third-culture kid, was a colleague of

mine in the same department. In her original paper, Ruth Useem was
talking technically about cultural variables that are not definable in terms
of ours and theirs. She was talking about the dynamic in which people
from outside settings residing in an inside setting do not take their primary
identities ultimately from either, but they take it from the commonness that
they have with others who are doing the same thing.

The first culture is one's own native base culture. Second culture is

the culture into which one is knowingly adapting by virtue of being
somewhere else. Though in many cases one rejects particulars of the new
culture, nevertheless one is living willingly within it. The third culture, and

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this was Ruth's insight, is that different little culture that's created by a
whole bunch of people who are doing the second culture thing together, at
the same time, in the same space, as they create their own community.

You may be interested in knowing that Ruth Useem and her husband,

John, spent most of their lives in Asia studying the overseas intellectual
communities of Western European and American people in the sciences
and technology. Those transplanted technologists and scientists in Singa-
pore would seek their friendships not among Singaporeans, but among
others from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, who were also technol-
ogists in Singapore. That was what she described as the third culture.

First Cultural Context

We should understand the cultural contexts in which we operate. First

of all, every one of us operates as a child in some kind of community. The
MK is a child of the missionary community. The starting place culture of
that child is the culture of that base community. Now if you believe that the
starting place culture of the missionary community of Quito, Ecuador, is
exactly like the starting place community of white middle class Americans
of Toledo, Ohio, you are wrong. They are not exactly alike, but they have a
lot in common, however.

Think of it in terms of communities, not cultures. We all can

understand community. The goal of that community is to produce an aware
citizen with a sense of identity. But we've got a problem. Many people in
American society today, and to some extent in some of the other Western
societies, are not learning enough about the distinctives of their own
culture. If I were to ask the typical person on the street in the United States,
"Name five distinctly American values," he would give me a very quick
one-word response, and it would be "Huh?"

One of the problems that the overseas family has is the need to

comprehend at a fairly specific level what makes that base culture coherent.
For example, we need to understand and be ready to help our children
understand what our rituals are. We've got to come to grips with the rituals
that give a culture texture. What is the Fourth of July? What does it stand
for? Why are there holidays on Presidents' birthdays? What was the
Thanksgiving idea? Where did it come from? Why do Americans celebrate

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Christmas differently? Why is Christmas so commercialized? We need to
understand that it's part of our value system.

Now you say, "Well, I'm not proud of part of it." That's all right.

That's known as maturity, and people in any culture can come to a level of
maturity that says, "Not everything about the way we are is glorious, but
we understand it. We appreciate it. We value it, and sometimes we even
defend it irrationally." That's part of a base culture.

What is it that we pick out to pass on to our kids? It's possible as a

critical Christian to come to grips with the positive side of our culture and
our history. What are the events that have shaped us?

In every society you can find some values that have their origin in a

biblical premise. There's one that I find very interesting to reflect on.
Americans tend to derive their identity and draw their self-awareness from
a contemporary "who we are," rather than, as true in many other Western
societies, "who our family has been and where our family came from."

"We know who we are." Americans like to say that. It's important

that we know who we are--not who we were, but who we are. There are
Europeans who like to keep pointing back and saying, "Here is where we
came from." They look back. Americans always look in the present, and
that is a strangely Christian view. The core of that idea is that as Christ-
ians, we are what we are because of what God is doing.

So there is a Christian root in that cultural value. But in a fallen world

it goes sour. It turns into a kind of repression of our consciousness of our
worldly heritage, the denial of our past. It turns into an excessive
preoccupation with "me" and "here and now" and "my thing."

The core of many of our value ideas are sound, if we can help our kids

peel them apart like a banana and find the good inside. We could do our
culture a lot of good if we knew how to teach that, and if our kids were
doing it competently. Americans overseas are typically more concerned
about values than their cousins in the States. That's good. It's a benefit of a
first, or base culture, context of the overseas growing-up experience.

Second Cultural Context

But there's a second cultural context, and this gets even better,

because our second context is carved out of being friendly, voluntary
participants in a host society. The goal of this process is becoming

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sojourners who learn. In any culture, we gain perspective on our own base
culture as we see it from outside.

The biblical models are outstanding: Abraham in the Old Testament,

who through his sojourning experience came to know who God was; Jesus
as a focal person in the whole of God's plan, a tremendous example of a
sojourner; and of course, Paul, who was the nomad of nomads. The great
model missionary, don't forget, was an itinerant. These people were
conforming to culture, but being transformed by that which is greater than
culture, and using cultural experience as part of that transforming process.

One of the greatest benefits of experiencing a second culture is

perspective. That perspective helps us see our own base culture more
clearly. In the context of the other, we have an experience that is unavail-
able to the fish. The fish are never asked how it feels to live in the water,
for the simple reason that fish have absolutely no way of comparing living
in the water with living anywhere else. One reason that Americans can't tell
you what it means to be American is because so few Americans have ever
experienced it from a second cultural context.

I find MKs to be more understanding of the nature of American

society than people who are raised wholly within it. Would that we could
get that message across to parents. They think they've hurt their kids. They
think God goofed. They think somehow God has to separately call
everybody to every altitude, latitude, longitude, and attitude. That is a lot of
bunk. Our God has called all of us into this world to be ministering persons
in cultures. Whether I'm in some subcultural context in North America or
somewhere else in the world, what's the difference?

Notice the frequency of the word survive in reference to other culture

living. "How do you survive?" Every time you hear the word survive,
replace it with the word thrive. Don't talk about survival kits. Anxieties for
parents and children are far less if we use our second cultural context to
better understand our first cultural context.

Third Cultural Context

The beauty of growing up overseas is a third cultural context that is

actually a foretaste of what I see as twenty-first century Christianity.
Today's Christian has the possibility of being called by God into service as
a member of the international community of the Body of Christ. World

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Christians,

a common, almost cliché term, has a lot of substance under-

neath it. The problem is we haven't gotten serious enough to get together to
talk about what we mean by World Christian. What are some of the
distinctively evident characteristics of being a World Christian in the
missionary kid community? Let me give you some examples.

Characteristics of the MK as World Christian

A characteristic of the overseas missionary child is a sense of

extended family that goes even beyond blood lines. You've experienced
it--Uncle Pete, Aunt Mary. It is representative of a third cultural context of
the Christian in an internationalizing world.

Another characteristic is the loyalty to Christian values, even above

social pragmatics. These are characteristics of the internationalizing
community of Christ that may very well, in this increasingly shrinking
world, become characteristic of the church in general in the twenty-first
century. One of my propositions is that the missionary kid of the nineties
will be the prototype of the Christian of the twenty-first century.

We're coming to understand now that people don't move out of their

nation, get educated, and then come back home again. Missionaries haven't
quite come to grips with this. People who get higher levels of education
generally don't "go home again" in the old-fashioned sense of going back
to their own community and their own people. They become part of an
internationalizing set of people.

Many of the people reading this article may have originally gone into

missions for a three- to five-year stint. However, now, even if they were to
leave missions, they would probably remain in some kind of international
community, in some kind of international work. This is a very important
transformation occurring in modern societies.

The Peace Corps veterans who were strongly in demand in the late

sixties and seventies have largely disappeared because of the de-emphasis
of later administrations on the Peace Corps. Therefore, the MK community
once again may become the popular source for internationalists to take
responsibilities overseas.

There's a vacuum in the world that can be filled by MKs who are

freed by their parents and by their communities to be whatever it is that

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God wants them to be. More important, the World Christian as a cultural
model can be founded and grounded in Romans 12. First we see the image
there of the living sacrifice. But then we see the qualitative descriptions:
not egocentric; not ethnocentric; transformed, not conformed; and com-
mitted to a body-life concept of community.

Could that be characteristic of the global Christian community in the

twenty-first century? I believe so. The problem is that missions are in
transformation. Mission strategies are changing. The nature of the mis-
sionary vocation is changing. A career missionary today does not get
buried in China at age forty-seven under great mounds of Chinese soil. He
gets buried at age forty-seven at a North American mission office desk
under mounds of paper.

The problem is that we see the cracks. We see the flaws. We're aware

that there are real problems in the missionary community today. Let's back
off and look at the bigger picture. Sure there are problems. Sure there are
cracks and flaws; but God is in control. God is doing God's thing. It is our
stubbornness that insists on being able to see every step ahead of time.
Again, that is a very Western value.

The sad fact is that most North American churches, mission- support-

ing churches, are painfully monocultural. They need your help to get out of
that. Wow! What thirty thousand MKs could do to help transform those
churches!

Once upon a time a marvelously wise man who was culturally flex-

ible, who knew how to work in that second context and third context, said
these words, "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself
willingly a slave to everybody to win as many as possible. To the Jews I
became like a Jew to win the Jews. To those who were under the law I
became like one under the law. To those not having the law I became one
not having the law, so as to win them. To the weak I became weak, to win
the weak." Here's the ultimate statement of third context flexibility: "I
have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might
save some. I do this for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its
blessings." That's what I mean by the MK as the prototype of the twenty-
first century Christian.

Would that we would integrate our Christianity in the whole of our

experience. Being a Christian is ultimately is cultural matter, not just an

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other-worldly experience. We need to synchronize our families, our com-
munities, and our schools to this culture three, the context of Christian
internationalism.

Role of the Schools

Schools need to carefully articulate what it is that parents are and who

it is that parents are becoming. There is no excuse for any institution
allegedly serving missions to make things harder for missionaries or for
missions. I am weary of the stories of last minute teachers arriving in a
state of real shock within cultural enclaves, attempting to teach children
and projecting racist overtones. MKs deserve better. Missionaries must
demand better. And God's name must be better served.

Faults in "Christian" Education

There are four faults in much that passes as Christian education that

Christian education should come to grips with.

Ethnocentrism

is a kind of learning impairment. If you knew you

were doing something to kids that was making it harder for them to read,
you would do something about it. Ethnocentrism makes it harder for kids to
learn from the environments in which they live. It's a learning impairment.
We ought to recognize it and put our heads together on it.

Fear of the unknown

produces hostility and anger and a lot of other

nonproductive fruits that are hardly fruits of the Spirit. We need to help
people with fear.

Superiority syndrome

is the notion that our way is the best way. It is

not the way of Christ. Helping children see how much better they are than
their fellows and their siblings is no way to encourage them. Most of us as
parents know that, but we turn around and do it in our communities.

Social distance and isolation.

We can learn to accept culture as an

encounter, a walk of life, dynamic and changing; can learn and teach the
skills of learning culture; and can learn not to fret over whether or not I
want my kid to marry a national. That's a secondary question, and if it
becomes an obsession early in life, it guarantees negative outcomes.
Furthermore, it guarantees putting children into school environments that
are totally separated from the societies in which they're living. The

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Christian community needs to develop support structures that make real the
international nature of the community of Christ.

We need to relate acceptingly, in the spirit of the Gospel, to people to

whom we are ministering even though their ways seem culturally alien from
ours. Our good Lord was criticized for keeping company with people of a
culture that was unfitting in the eyes of the Pharisees. "You hang around
with these publicans and sinners and fallen women and all the rest of the
rabble." And Jesus replied, "I have come for that purpose."

Do we need research in this field? Yes, I think we do. We need a

better understanding of our context, and a clearer understanding of
ourselves and of the dynamics that impact MKs because of who we are. Do
we need analysis? Yes, I think so, because to see more clearly is to be
better in touch with realities and better able to cope. Respect and
perspective are keys to Christian development.

Having said that, I am very much afraid that a preoccupation with

diagnostics and therapies can get us into a great deal of trouble. We need to
think bigger than the MK as our unit of analysis in the first place. We need
to look beyond our schools and our families. We need to look at the whole
nature of the Christian community in a given context and all that it can be
for the glory of God. Anxious parents, defensive schools, isolated
communities--these can be made over to the glory of God.

We are the people of hope. I Corinthians 13:13 is still there, and our

major strength lies in that word hope. It sits between faith and love. The
greatest of these is love. Indeed, in the genius of the gospel, that's the crux
of it. But in the serving of communities of Christ, we must be careful to
keep the centerpiece, hope, in its place. Growing up as an MK should
always be approached by any of us--parents, professionals, community
members--in terms of its positive values, especially in light of the needs of
a world in which Christians with global interests, concerns, and com-
petencies will serve well their reigning Lord and Master.

Based on a presentation given at ICMK Quito, January 1987.

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9.

Transitions and The TCK

Jean M. Larson

David Pollock

1

speaks about transition as a five-phase process. His

model, used here in the context of the Third-Culture Kid,

2

is useful in much

more varied applications. The transition process follows the same
progression whether an individual is leaving school, moving from job to
job or town to town, entering the military, starting retirement, or even for
those who are saying good-bye to a dying loved one. Pollock, who travels
internationally, has used the matrix with diverse audiences such as people
in missionary orientation and people coming out of the prison system.

Introduction

Life is constantly changing, and change precipitates transition. The

nomadic lifestyle of Third-Culture Kids (TCKs), with its cycles of moving,
necessitates many transitions. First, there is the move from home country
to the country of service. For some, because of parents' work assignments,
there is moving from country to country. There can be moving from town
to town within the country of service; there may also be a boarding school
or international school to attend, holding the possibility of children moving
away from home and far from parents. Then there is home leave, uprooting
the family from the country of service to spend time recuperating in the
home country. The cycle may then repeat itself.

Transition cycles for the TCK have two important overlays to

consider: high-frequency mobility and the transcultural experience. The
continuous challenge of changing cultures, with differing cues and relation-
ships is coupled not only with their own mobility, but also with the mobil-
ity of other cross-cultural sojourners--friends and acquaintances. These
people may be on a different cycle, but their lives have intersected for a
span of time. This high-frequency mobility produces a continual need for
readjustment in order to cope with its kaleidoscope of change. The
resulting lifestyle is extremely intense.

Missionary children's (MKs') successful adjustment to a new

situation has to do with four elements or cornerstones. First, parental

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relationships.

Their parents' world view and their relationship to each

other have a profound influence in the MK's development and subsequent
adjustments. Very important are the parents' perception of God, their
relationship to the mission organization, their co-workers, the culture in
which they are working, and then to each other. This means their style of
showing affection, their problem-solving techniques, their style of sharing
responsibilities, and their use of leisure time. Parents are charged with the
responsibility to "train up a child in the way he should go." What takes
place in the family sets the course for what will continue to be.

Second is how the child perceives he or she is valued. Note that

whether or not the child actually is loved and valued is not the issue; the
working word here is "perceives." Parents need to affirm their love for the
child and their value of him or her in such a positive way that the child
cannot fail to understand. The most obvious way is to simply verbalize
this--and often. Strengthen and confirm this spoken word by spending
unhurried time with the child; play with her, listen to him, and allow them
to voice opinions and help in decision-making about transitions.

Next, the child needs to perceive what the parent(s) are doing as

something valuable.

How the parents approach their life and work is a

model from which MKs will choose elements for their own lives. If parents
are perceived as doing meaningful work and contributing to worthwhile
things, the child can better understand the need for, and make a better
adjustment to, any given transition this work may necessitate.

And, finally, practical and persistent faith. Faith is not necessarily a

given for the child. A parent's persistent faith provides a hopeful percep-
tion of life for the child, both in a general way and in particular
circumstances. Balance between a faith that "God will provide" and "God
enables us to help ourselves" encourages practical adjustment to
circumstances. Also, whether transition can be seen as something hopeful
is quite dependent on the parents' approach.

Dr. John Powell

3

indicates that MKs' chances of successful transition

are heightened when family support, allowing the child to "process" is also
present. Processing involves the elements of talking, feeling, thinking,
sharing with others, understanding, and finding meaning in the change.
Allow your MK to experience, express, and process his or her feelings

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about any transition. If this goes well, then he or she can move into the
re-engagement stage and move on with that period of life. If children are
unable to come to terms with a change, any later transition--particularly a
move or a change in relationship, job, or responsibility--may cause them
to go through a similar pattern of anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and loneliness
again. It takes some people a long time to learn to cope with change in an
adequate way. On the positive side, however, people who understand and
accept change, and have had the opportunity to process, have much less
difficulty in their subsequent moves and transitions.

People experiencing change undergo a five-phase transition process.

4

Most people are unaware of these phases and one can certainly go through
any transition experience without being aware of the process, but it is
helpful to understand the dynamics. Understanding the phases, along with
their accompanying signs, changes, and expected behaviors, can be helpful
in preparing an individual or a family not only to cope with their transitions
but actually to flourish in the midst of them. Note that each of the
transition phases has a "time orientation" which accompanies it. This is an
indicator of mental activity on the part of participants in transition--for
example, engaged in and thinking of the present or more oriented toward
and thinking about the future. To further help the reader understand the
dynamics of transitions, a hypothetical TCK family has been created, and
brief illustrations show how their lives are affected by each of the five
phases in the process.

The Anthony Smith Family

Anthony and Milan Smith have been married for twenty years. For the

last thirteen years, they have been involved in mission work overseas. They
have two children: Sam, 16, a high school junior, and his thirteen-year-old
sister Sarah, in eighth grade. Their dog Shadow has been part of the family
for five years.

Phase 1: Engagement

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This is also sometimes called Involvement. Persons and families in

this stage are settled in, part of a group where they know and are known by
almost everyone. They know the routines, what to expect, and how to act.
They know the social cues. They belong to various groups: school, church,
work, and play. Information of a personal nature is often shared or known.
One also has access to each group's "inside information." This may mean
knowing a vocabulary of workable words (or language) useful only in that
setting. The time orientation for Engagement is the present; people at this
stage are psychologically present-oriented.

Adults in the engagement phase usually assume a position of

responsibility in a work setting. Children are also given responsibility for
tasks as they become able, whether putting out the hymnals for evening
devotions or setting the table every noon for the family. As they grow
older, it may mean cooking certain meals, coordinating something for their
class, taking part in sports, or becoming a class officer. Being part of such
a community of people gives a feeling of comfort, security, trust, and
responsiveness. The result is a strong sense of belonging and commitment.
This is what is meant by engagement; it is such a natural occurrence that
most people fail to think about it.

The Smith Family: Engagement

Anthony Smith is district missionary pastor in Africa. He visits

several towns, and routinely holds worship services in each, with
communion. He knows the names of most of the worshipers; they all know
him. Periodically he also visits a country market, holds a service, and sells
books. The country folk there know him by name as well, and they look
forward to this visit. He loves his work.

Milan sometimes accompanies Anthony. She has long since been well

settled into their wood-frame mission station home. She knows the local
market and stores well, can find what she needs, and is comfortable asking
for help when she doesn't. Milan is well acquainted with her neighbors;
they enjoy sewing and drinking tea together. She belongs to a book club in
the nearby large city, where expatriate wives meet once a month to discuss
a book. Milan also belongs to her local Ladies' Aid group, and is now
comfortable enough in the language to take her turn leading Bible Study.

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She helps with their fund-raisers, and helps to visit the sick and the new
mothers. Milan also has time for calling on and receiving friends, inviting
folks for meals, remembering birthdays, writing home, and helping her two
children with their school interests. She feels settled in her routine. So do
the children.

Sam and Sarah attend local schools. English is taught as a second

language, and they both engage in sports and recreation with friends in the
national language, which Sam learned at a young age and Sarah has grown
up with. Their friends are locals. They both do well in school and like it.
Sam is on the soccer team. He and his friends ride bike freely around town,
and play ball in the fields. They fish in the nearby lake.

Sarah spends most days with her friend, Rajelima. They run between

their two homes, helping mothers in the kitchen, making treats, working
together on homework, thinking about the Fall Mountain Race, and gig-
gling about boys. Both Sam and Sarah look forward to their family's
annual vacation in the mountains, where they camp. Shadow romps around
the fenced yard or sleeps, and sometimes goes fishing with the boys. He
doesn't bark much, as he recognizes everyone in the neighborhood. In this
stage, the Smith family feels accepted, secure, confirmed. They are
involved

or engaged.

Phase II: Leaving

The second phase often begins as soon as one is aware of an upcom-

ing change, or when a big move is known much ahead of time, say, six
months prior to actually leaving. If phase one is engagement, then phase
two is really the disengagement. It is characterized by a loosening of ties,
distancing from people, and disengagement from responsibilities. There-
fore, it affects not only the person making the transition or change, but also
those who will be left behind.

It is a time of farewells and closure, with feelings of excitement and

anticipation, but also sadness, rejection, and denial. The time orientation
for participants at this stage is not so much in the present, but in the future,
and it is temporary. A note should be made here that in evacuations this
phase is eradicated, and often becomes an issue at a later date.

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The Smith Family: Leaving

Anthony Smith received word last week of a re-assignment to the

Seminary on the coast, where he will teach. He is delighted at the new
opportunity and is looking forward to the challenge. As he goes into the
country, he feels sadness that he will no longer be ministering to these
people. However, he decides to ask the catechist to preach and lead
worship in two of his towns. He feels less inclined to linger at the market
and less eager to do favors. The people wonder why.

Milan is happy for her husband Anthony, but is sad to leave her

friends and the people at church. It is difficult to tell them she'll be leaving.
When she does, she notices that they don't invite her to help them plan the
next fund-raising event, and some of them seem cool in their relationship
now. She will especially miss the expatriate wives' book club. They hold a
surprise going away party for her. Milan is busy thinking about sorting and
packing, wondering what they will do with Shadow, what to do with excess
furniture, and whether she should have a sale.

Sam and Sarah learn of their father's re-assignment. The first reac-

tions are those of denial and sadness, "Oh, no! Not on the coast!" "I won't
be here for my senior year! I'll not be on the soccer team!" "I'll have to
leave my friend, Rajelima! Where will we be going to school? We won't be
here for the Fall Mountain Race!" Notice how Sam and Sarah try to deny
their leaving, yet at the same time look to their future, seeing what that
would mean for them and their lives.

Once one learns of an upcoming change, one's mind more and more

focuses on what that will mean for the future in terms of living, working,
schooling, making friends, shopping, cooking, recreation, sports and
politics. And as one ponders a future change (whether a two-week vacation,
having a baby, or moving to a different town or country), one begins to
make tentative plans: what to pack, what to give away, buying necessities,
making little notes about people or services to notify. As people begin to
engage in this process of "future thinking," they begin to disengage or pull
away from the present tasks and community of people. Likewise, their
friends and colleagues began to disengage from them as well. Emotional
disengagement usually precedes actual physical leaving.

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Sam finds he is less interested in finishing his school yearbook, and is

sometimes left out when the boys ride their bikes to fish. Sarah and
Rajelima continue to spend time together, but now begin to find little
irritating things about one another, a phenomenon that often happens at
this stage. Even Shadow notices the changes in family routine and becomes
less passive. He barks more now.

"RAFT" Technique for Good-byes

At this stage, every effort should be made to assist personnel to

properly relinquish their roles and responsibilities, reconcile all inter-
personal conflicts, express proper farewells to people and places, reaffirm
relationships, and develop realistic and positive expectations for the new
assignment. David Pollock's R-A-F-T technique, a useful tool in making
satisfactory good-byes, and often presented by him and others in seminars
on transition, facilitates remembering what needs attention:

R is for Reconciliation.

People have a need to try to make peace with

others. Ask others for forgiveness for anything they may hold against you,
whether you are aware of anything or not. Christians have some
instructions on this subject from Jesus, in Matthew 5:23ff. It is easy to feel
relief if one is leaving a bad situation or unfriendly neighbors. However, if
one leaves without trying to make some peace, that memory persists as a
burden, sometimes called an "invisible backpack." This contributes to a
less-than-totally-satisfactory closure to their leave-taking experience.
People need good closures in order to make good entrances into the next set
of experiences. This seems to be of vital importance to people who are
dying. Sometimes they hold off dying, waiting for an estranged child to
appear, in order to make some amends. It helps to create a peaceful
conclusion to this phase.

A is for Affirmation.

It's telling people what they mean to you and

thanking them. This can be done either in writing or in person. People
respond very positively to being thanked, often thanking you for thanking
them! It serves to put smiles on faces and leaves everyone feeling better.
While Pollock's Transition Seminar was originally developed for people

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making the large transition of crossing cultures and countries, such as
missionary families, his R-A-F-T technique is also a helpful tool for anyone
making various good-byes during their lifetime.

F is for Farewells.

Remember not only to say good-bye to people,

but to places, pets, and possessions. Make good-byes to pets special; be
certain to assure young children that they--the children--will accompany
you to the new destination. In a child's mind, a pet is part of the family,
and if one leaves a pet behind or gives it away, the young child may feel
uneasy about who in the family will be next. Verbalizing what will take
place will allay many fears. Make time for visiting special places one last
time. Parents should be alerted to allow children to make some decisions
about what possessions are special to them, in order to take along at least
some of those. Take photos of people, places, pets, and possessions. Allow
for spontaneous "fun breaks" as a stress reliever for the whole family. A
safe rule of thumb at this time: when things get hectic, spend more time,
not less, in face-to-face activities with children. Give extra hugs. All this
will pay off in the long run.

T is for Think ahead.

Rehearsal for change is an important prepar-

atory step. Think about, and perhaps even make lists of your expectations
of the future. Express excitement over anticipated pleasures. Acknowledge
grief and sadness in leaving. A list of things you will miss, or discussing
these with the family, allows you to grieve the losses along with looking
forward to new things to be gained. Use role play instead of talk with small
children.

Phase III: Transition

"Transition begins at the point of physically leaving and ends when

you `unpack your mind,'" according to Pollock.

6

Generally characterized

by chaos, the heart of transition usually contains grief from losses, lack of
structure both in schedule and task expectations, exaggeration of problems,
ambiguity, and lack of status. Comfort and stability can be provided
through clear communication of expectations, expression of questions and
fears, and maintenance of rituals and practices. Arrival in the new situation

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should be planned to assure a positive and secure initial period with
understanding people. Time orientation in the midst of transition is heavily
leaning toward the future. Persons involved in the transition now think of
and long for the future, when things will once again be back to normal for
them.

The Smith Family: Transition

The Smith family is experiencing their last week in their old place,

and they are nearly ready to leave. Each family member is sad to leave
friends and known routines, but looks forward to the move. Those who
drop by for a last farewell, even the dear friends, have almost begun to feel
like an annoyance. The usual routines have stopped for all of the Smiths
now. Each has begun to feel like the proverbial "duck out of water." Others
around them continue on with their daily lives; their own lives are upset
and upsetting because it is hard to find clothes and other needed items in
their packed boxes. The parents have done a good job in allowing their
children to express sadness, and have listened to their fears about what the
future holds as well as sharing some of their own. Sarah is having dreams
in which she is missing arms or a leg, and Milan assures her that dreams of
loss often happen to people in transition. One of the saddest things for the
family is that they have to leave Shadow behind because of uncertainty
about keeping him where they are going. They'll live in an apartment which
they will locate after their arrival on the coast.

Meanwhile, the seminary has temporary housing for them. Anthony

knows that he will have to use a different dialect of the language he's been
using in the country, and that will be an adjustment. He's also realizing he
knows "country things" which will be of no use in the city. He is aware of
this because he still remembers hearing about "special knowledge without
use" in an orientation seminar as they were getting ready to leave the
United States the first time.

Anthony also knows that they can expect any smaller problems to be

exaggerated as they enter this phase of transition. He knows, too, that their
sadness is proof they have made good friends and attachments (and can do
it again). He remembers hearing about emotional instability at this stage;
therefore, he and Milan don't get upset with Sam's outbursts and Sarah's

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complaints of minor stomachaches. They all are feeling a little emotional at
this point. They each struggle with fears and apprehension regarding what
is still unknown about their future, as well as the sadness of good-byes,
loss of routine, and the disorientation of not being able to find their things.
And now, they just want to "get on with it," knowing departure is
inevitable.

Phase IV: Entering

The shaky first steps of settling into a new situation require the use of

observation and learning skills. Most TCKs are good observers, and have
an advantage in that they can sit back and watch before taking risks with
the new behaviors which new situations sometimes demand: new customs,
new cues and responses. Youth and adults alike feel vulnerable, uncertain
and marginal at this point.

A catchy motto for this phase could be "Get mentoring for entering."

With all the changes required, everyone in this phase needs a trustworthy,
positive mentor who can answer questions, give advice, and appropriately
intervene--a guide to interpret others' behavior signals, and to help
prevent errors made in response. This is especially important when
crossing or mixing cultures. The time orientation for this step has now
switched back to the present, as each participant puts attention to the task
of adjustment. This entering phase normally takes going through a normal
life cycle of a year. After that, it usually needs at least six more months for
each individual family member to integrate and feel comfortable in their
new situation.

The Smith Family: Entering

Anthony and Milan Smith realize it will take much hard work to

establish new friendships, both for themselves and for the children. They
have been through this before, when they first arrived in this new country.
Anthony remembered someone saying that when entering a new situation,
one needs a good mentor because of the uncertainty of your position. Prior
to moving, he and Milan made inquiries about possible mentors for Sam
and Sarah, as well as educational opportunities for the children.

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The parents know that their family, as the newcomers, will need to

take the initiative in finding friends by being outgoing and friendly. The
family is, however, feeling much the way they did in the leaving phase. As
they were preparing to leave, friends and colleagues began excluding them
because they would no longer be part of things in the future. Now, in the
midst of "entering," they again experience feelings of being excluded. This
is normal when people are not yet sufficiently acquainted with their new
situation to be fully integrated into it.

Most people in this phase hope for others to rush up and be genuinely

welcoming, and sometimes this happens in real life. People who are totally
engaged in their own lives and activities usually are not actively looking for
new friends. Milan and Anthony have been forewarned about the
exceptions.

They may be either "renegade" types or "loners." These renegades are

actually still looking for friends. They are people who have been present
long enough to be part of the establishment, but who are not completely
integrated into the established group and activities. They are still on the
periphery because their behavior is not totally acceptable or conforming to
the established community. Sam and Sarah's parents have explained this to
them, and the children are old enough to understand they are vulnerable at
this point and need to be alert so as not be taken in by undesirable friends.
Missionary children, by virtue of having grown up in an environment of
trusted people, especially need to be forewarned regarding this
phenomenon!

The whole Smith family is very fortunate because there is a European

family at the Seminary who has been recommended to them, and they have
made contact. The Europeans have a son the same age as Sam, and two
daughters, one a year older than Sarah and the other two years younger.
They speak English as a second language. The children will all attend the
same international school, and the European kids will help to introduce the
Smith children to appropriate friends.

Sam can try out for the soccer team and is hopeful he will be

accepted. Sarah is looking forward to meeting the two girls. The European
woman will take Milan to the seminary wives' group and introduce her.
The European man will befriend Anthony and show him around the

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Seminary and make introductions. The Smith's "entering" phase now
seems very hopeful. They all have people "mentoring for entering."

Phase V: Re-Engagement

Re-engagement

in a position of belonging and involvement is a

conscious choice, characterized by a willingness to accept people and
situations as they are, to participate in new relationships, and a commit-
ment to serve in the new setting. It is also most helpful--a turning point--
to recognize that it is not disloyal to one's former circumstance to enjoy
one's present situation. Finding a support group of people who have shared
the transition experience can be a stabilizing factor at this point.

The Smith Family: Re-Engagement

The Smith family is now feeling settled. While still grieving the loss

of some former friendships, and certainly missing their dog, Shadow, they
have found the Europeans to be great friends. Also, each family member
has found other new friends within their various groups. They are involved,
and committed to their responsibilities. They feel intimate, secure, and
affirmed. Once again, they have "status": they know personal information
about others and personal information is known about them. They know
where they "fit" within their groups of friends and acquaintances. Their
behavior is conforming to the group, and they once again have both the
time and energy to have concern for others.

At this point people in transition are free to be asked, and to volunteer

their time and energy. The time orientation for this fifth stage of transition
continues to be the present, but now it takes on a permanent nature, which
will last until the next significant change for the participants. Then this
fifth phase becomes phase one of the new transition cycle.

Conclusion

To briefly re-cap the five-phase guide to the dynamics of transition:

Engagement

is first, and people feel very much settled; then there is

Leaving,

accompanied by an unsettled feeling, a "leaning away" and good-

byes. The actual Transition is next, and is best described by one word:

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chaos. There is a lot of anxiety and lack of status and structure at this
point. But shortly thereafter comes the Entering, with its resettling (and its
search for mentors). Once the entering phase is accomplished, however
long it takes, there is Re-Engagement, where one feels settled once again,
with status, intimacy, and commitment.

These are the five phases of the transition experience, a predictable

and very normal process. Being aware of the dynamics provides one with
preparedness training for facing change --"forewarned is forearmed." This
is an excellent working model. Its five stages provide a framework into
which most of life's transitions fit. It is also a useful tool for understanding
our own and others' behavior during change, and therefore is helpful in
honing skills to navigate the transitions we all continue to experience
throughout life.

Notes

1. David C. Pollock, Executive Director, Interaction, Inc., Houghton,

New York.

2. Term coined by Dr. Ruth Hill Useem, Professor Emeritus,

Sociology, Michigan State University. Definition by David Pollock: A
Third-Culture Kid (TCK) is an individual who spends a significant part of
his or her developmental years in a culture other than his or her parents'
passport culture, and develops a sense of relationship to all of the cultures,
while not having full ownership in any. Elements from each culture are
incorporated into his or her life experience, but the sense of belonging is in
relationship to others of similar experience. This group of similar-
experience people is referred to as the "third culture" of TCKs. Used in Mr.
Pollock's seminars.

3. John Powell, Professor Emeritus, Psychology and Counseling,

Michigan State University. Presentation at ICMK Quito, January 1987.

4. David C. Pollock, Interaction, Inc., Houghton, New York. Five-

Phase Transition Dynamics. From his seminars; used by permission.

5. David C. Pollock, "Exit Right, Enter Right," World Report, April

1991. RAFT Technique used by author's permission.

6. David C. Pollock, personal communication.

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10.

Preparing Children for Missionary Life

Sandra D. Wright with Paul E. Nelson

When a couple makes the decision to pursue cross-cultural ministry,

every member of the family is affected, usually for a lifetime. For that
reason, overseas preparation must address the unique challenges faced by
each family member as well as the whole family unit. Hardly anyone
would disagree with that lofty ideal. But how does one translate that ideal
into a coherent program that addresses the complex interpersonal and
intercultural issues in age-appropriate and relevant ways?

Including children in a candidate orientation program presents some

problems. Thus, many mission agencies continue to focus their pre-field
training efforts on adult candidates and relegate the children to caring
people who can keep them occupied. Some missions make few exceptions
to their policy of requiring parents to leave their children with relatives or
friends while they attend the candidate orientation program. Other mis-
sions have children accompany their parents but make inadequate provi-
sion for their needs, thus finding it almost impossible to keep parents
engaged. If these policies are going to change, mission administrators need
to see viable family orientation programs in operation that are really
making a difference.

The challenge of effective pre-field preparation for families lies not in

recognizing the importance of preparation for children, but in finding ways
to implement a viable program. The process of meeting that challenge can
begin with an examination of some commonly held assumptions about
missions, MKs, and missionary families.

It is assumed that "missionary" is a role filled by an adult. Children

accompany their missionary parents to the field. They may even be
included as integral members of the missions community, but they are the
primary concern of their parents rather than the agency. Most mission
agencies organize themselves around the assumption that they are made up
of adult missionaries with dependent children who need to be cared for and
educated, but they are incidental to the "real work."

In reality, missionary families function best in the unique role of

reflecting God's glory in a new culture when they function as "ministering
units."

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The relationship between family and the mission of the church is so

intimate that each is enhanced by the other. Reflecting the Gospel's
power to transform people and to bring purposeful unity, the missionary
family is an important part of the witness of the Word. Incarnation of
Christ into family is central in the work and witness of the missionary.
The Gospel is evident in the family's redemptive responses to its own
weaknesses and failures.

The unity for which our Lord prayed in John 17 begins in the

missionary family and then works its way outward through the rest of the
family's ministry.

(Sojourners, Rowan and Rowan, Associates of Urbanus,

1990)

This vision elevates each member of the family to a central focus in the
communication of the Gospel. In this context, children are more than
dependents, or even elements in the team's strategy to build relationships
in the community. They are integral to fulfilling the ministry to which God
has called their family. That fact alone warrants giving each person in a
family the best preparation possible for the crucial role they will fill.

Another common assumption is that "kids will adjust," especially

when they are younger. "We don't need to take on responsibility for
something that will happen naturally." Why is that believed so readily?
From infancy a child is in a continual mode of learning--learning to walk,
talk, identify people and things, learning right from wrong. Adjustment for
a child is a constant. Since they are continually learning, "kids do adjust."
But, even a cursory understanding of early childhood development should
cause us to question the cost and lifelong impact of the trial-and-error
approach to the complexities of cross-cultural adjustment.

The experience of moving and learning to live in another culture

greatly increases the amount of learning and stress that a child must go
through. Helping children as well as parents develop ways to talk about
their fears, their losses, their strategies for handling change, their trust in
God, and dozens of other issues will contribute significantly to the overall
effectiveness of that "ministering unit." Sending organizations need to
help every member of the family anticipate what they will experience in
their new setting so they can align their expectations with reality.

Life's experiences are like a tapestry of interwoven threads. As one

considers helping children prepare for radical change, it must be under-
stood that the affective rather than the cognitive domain is in focus. These

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feelings, perspectives, and expectations are interwoven with each other and
with concrete experiences creating a differing pattern for each member of
the family. With children, the affective issues are not often considered
until they hit a "snag" and there is a crisis. Preparation for each child will
strengthen the "threads" and tighten the "weave" for the whole family.
With the right kind of preparation, children can go through the upheaval of
moving to and living in another country with fewer "snags" and actually
grow in positive ways through the experience.

Personal Identity

There are three essential areas in which the threads of pre-field

preparation may be interwoven: personal identity, the transition process,
and unrealistic expectations. As children grow in self-understanding, they
are better able accept differences, develop relationships, respond to change,
learn effectively, and grow through the experiences of living interculturally.
Each child's unique development must be considered in the training
process. Missionary children begin to understand their personal identity
as they gain experience with the following issues:

· Understanding one's strengths and challenges: these affect the

way a child relates to others and learns new things

· Understanding the way one learns best: knowing this can enable to

plan ways they will learn about the new culture and language and
choose from differing educational options

· Understanding what is personally important: some values will

change and some will not change as a family enters a new culture

· Understanding how to respond to differences in others (outward

appearance, way of doing things): it is important to approach
differences with openness, a desire to learn, and an attitude of
loving acceptance

· Understanding feelings: "How do I feel about going overseas?

Both good and bad, at the same time?"

· Understanding how to enter another culture

Transition Process

The second essential area to address in preparation for cross-cultural

ministry is an understanding of the transition process. Each person will

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progress through the predictable stages of transition. Reactions to each
stage will often differ for each family member. An understanding of where
they are and the characteristics of each stage can help a child feel more
secure and remain open to learning throughout the process.

As children respond to the various elements of change, it is helpful to

look at some biblical examples of those who moved and lived in other
cultures. Jesus, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Jonah, Ruth, Esther, Paul, and
others provide familiar models for children. Issues to be addressed through
the transition process are:

· Understanding the stages of change and assessing where one is in

this process

· Learning about what makes up culture

· Developing strategies for dealing with cultural differences

· Exploring ways people learn in a new culture

· Anticipating ways one might handle frustration and stress that are

magnified through cultural change

· Knowing how to say "good-byes" and "hellos"

· Recognizing the "unchangables" in the transition--the constants

in the chaos

Expectations

The third essential area is an objective evaluation of one's

expectations

. What does each child expect of this new world to which he

or she is going? Knowing and modifying expectations ahead of time can
lessen fears, motivate learning, and develop inner flexibility. Inner
expectations are usually based on five things: (1) past experience, (2)
current knowledge, (3) personal values, (4) needs and (5) desires. These
are filtered through the affective screen of one's world view. It is fairly
simple to filter concrete information regarding past experiences and current
knowledge. However, helping children assess their inner expectations and
helping them talk about what they are anticipating requires sensitivity.
One must ask open, yet directive questions that can help the child and
parents identify what the expectations are and where they come from.

Once identified, a child should be helped to modify unrealistic

expectations. One way to begin this change process is to work toward cre-

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ating an environment in which children can hold their expectations lightly
and be encouraged to remain flexible. In a safe environment like this,
expectations can be modified as new information is gained. Listening to
the "why's" of a child's expectation is critical in this process. Expectations
that are unexamined and held tightly will often result in frustration and may
lead to anger, resentment, and bitterness. "Hope (expectations) deferred
makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" (Prov 13:12).
Children, even at an early age, can be helped to express and reshape their
expectations.

The second element in helping children deal with unrealistic expec-

tations is to learn specific information. For example, a child may have cer-
tain expectations about what school will be like. Based on past experience,
he or she may expect to be in a class with children all the same age. If one
schooling option is a small school in which there are several grades in a
classroom, the child could visit that type of school here. This experience
would help to mold a more realistic expectation.

Interconnected with each of these issues are the cross-threads of

relationships and cultural understanding. Here is where the affective issues
interact with life's experiences, where choices are made, where inner
character is revealed, and where "snags" occur. When children are asked
what their greatest concern is about moving overseas, the overwhelming
response is "friends." Relationships with God, family, and friends are
crucial for a child who is learning to live in a new culture and with a new
language.

It is important to assess a child's expectations of God throughout this

new adventure. Parents and teachers can be encouraged to ask questions
that will help the child talk about his perspective on God's role in their
transition. Children should also identify their expectations of themselves as
they go through radical changes. Inner expectations have a great deal to do
with the critical element of any relationship, trust.

In addition to these core pre-field issues, there are concepts that need

to be addressed by each person at a level of abstraction appropriate to his
or her developmental level. For example, an issue with which everyone
must deal is handling difference. A general objective might be to help
people understand and respond positively to difference. The age-
appropriate levels of understanding might be divided as follows:

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Level 1: Discovering differences in the way people look (color of

skin, clothing), ages 2-3.

Level 2: Developing acceptance and a positive attitude toward

differences in appearance, language, and actions; ages 4-6.

Level 3: Identifying thought processes and value differences; ages 7-

12.

Level 4: Understanding world view and problem-solving differences

and how they are reflected in one's actions; teens.

The difficulty in establishing objectives in affective areas is that the

outcomes are somewhat abstract. How do you test the extent of an attitude
change or a broadened world view? Nevertheless, it is essential that
affective issues be addressed in a pre-field training experience. The true
test of the results will come months or years later when the child has
demonstrated real growth through the transition and is thriving in the
overseas community.

Designing a Program to Prepare Children

Effective programs for preparing children for cross-cultural life grow

out of the same objectives as those developed for adults. The key issues of
effective ministry and how individuals relate to cultural change and
relationships are relevant for every member of the family. With these
objectives, age-appropriate experiential learning activities can be
developed and implemented with insight and purpose.

Children will remember best what they have experienced, not just

what they have seen or heard. Since most of the issues lie within the
experience-based affective domain, they are more easily taught through
interactive experiences. When well designed, these learning activities can
give a concrete framework for abstract concepts.

For example, when teaching about building and breaking trust in

relationships, an approach that may be used is building a structure block by
block (Jenga or Don't Break the Ice games). Each block represents
something that builds a relationship such as kindness, sharing, honesty, and
accepting another's ideas. When one block at a time is taken out (telling a
lie, cutting words) the structure is weakened until eventually the "trust" is
broken. Additional concepts may be taught by modifying this activity.
Just as the threads of vital issues are interwoven throughout a person's life,

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multiple themes and objectives are interwoven and may be covered in a
single learning activity.

Prescriptive teaching keeps the child's needs, development, person-

ality, strengths, and challenges continually in focus. This perspective
prepares teachers to adjust instruction to fit the student. It also gives
flexibility for responding to teachable moments. In one program, a
situation required the planned lessons to be set aside in order to deal with
some interpersonal conflict. How appropriate, following a morning
activity focused on trust building! The lesson for resolving conflicts was to
be two days later. Instead the teacher and students were able to turn the
potentially disruptive situation into a teachable moment.

"Stepping-stone" experiences can be set up to assist children in

making the necessary gradual adjustments. Experiences such as hearing
another language, figuring out the use or significance of artifacts from
another country, or eating something never tried are all good examples. In
a positive, emotionally safe environment, children are able to overcome
some of their fears of the unknown, deal with conflicting feelings, practice
culture learning strategies, and develop new mental "pockets" in which to
put future cross-cultural learning.

One "stepping-stone" experience that has been used successfully is to

take the children in the language learning program to a Chinese restaurant
where one of the waiters speaks Cantonese or Mandarin. The children are
given a few key phrases like "How do you say ...?" in the language, and
strategies for asking questions. They are encouraged to order something
they have never tasted before. This has proven to be one of the most
feared, but also most positive, learning experiences.

Small "stepping-stones" are provided by debriefing children in short

segments throughout the activity. It is helpful to put a short "insight
phrase" such as "Laugh and Learn" (used when afraid of being embar-
rassed in trying something new) with key lessons which the children can
quickly pull from memory when entering similar experiences.

The intercultural and missionary experience of a teacher adds valuable

depth to this type of program, as children learn from the teacher's
experience. Cultural flavor of the experiential activities can be based on
the teacher's background.

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In a program with other children also preparing to go overseas, a great

value is added by the interaction among them. Children learn from each
other. Many of the relationship concepts can also be put into practice in
living situations.

Family Preparation

Many missionary parents ask, "What can I do to help my children

prepare for our move?" Preparation for children is a process just as it is
for adults. It cannot be completed, and certainly not guaranteed, in a single
program. The sessions provide a foundation for learning on which other
things can be built. Preparation of the family begins in the initial decision
to serve God as a missionary family and continues through life's
experiences on and off the field.

Parents should realize that even before the final decision is made to

move into another cultural setting, they have begun the preparation process
for both themselves and their children. From that point on every part of
their life is focused toward some phase of the preparation process. Open
communication with children plays a critical part in the way a family
moves through this process together. Each member of the family has a
vital part to play in a successful transition. Children often express valuable
insight on what is happening if parents will take the time to draw them out.
They also have the rich treasure of simple faith that moves mountains.
From parents, children can learn how to deal with their own feelings as
they go through the processes of leaving and transition.

Along with open communication, families need to encourage an

openness to appropriate expressions of feelings. Children experience the
same paradox of negative and positive feelings as adults--excited about
going, sad about leaving. In their concrete world of right or wrong, it's
often difficult for children to understand how both can exist side by side
and that it's OK. Parents can use each event as a learning opportunity. The
experiences of life set the stage for some of the best lessons. One young
girl was getting very frustrated with another in the close living situation of
a training program. The parents could have told the girls to stay away from
each other, but instead they were able to use their conflicts to teach them
how to work through frustrations and personality differences in a close
missionary community.

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Preparation of the family also needs to have a structured element so

that parents can target a full range of relevant issues. Ideally, you could
plan to have a family night each week to which everyone is committed.
Using the same process of developing objectives and creating experiential
activities as explained above, parents can design a preparation plan for the
family. Families that prepare together are better able to serve together
because they have a common set of experiences and language to build
mutual understanding during transitional stress.

Regardless of the idealized vision often cited, few families will be

strengthened by living in a different culture. If the members of a family
have not developed healthy relationships and reasonable ways to resolve
conflicts in their home culture, it is unrealistic to expect those behaviors to
emerge in the stressful context of an unfamiliar environment and even more
complex relationships.

Comprehensive pre-field preparation must address the relationships

and patterns of interaction a family usually follows. If the relationships are
generally balanced and mutually affirming, each member of the family can
be given resources and encouragement to continue meeting each other's
needs and remain healthy in their new setting. If their relationships with
one another are potentially detrimental to the growth of the family and they
appear to have few viable strategies for coping with new stresses, it is
critical that they be given resources and encouragement to establish new
patterns before they leave for the field.

Summary

The life-changing decision to serve Christ in a cross-cultural ministry

greatly impacts every member of the family. Children and adults both need
to be prepared in critical affective as well as cognitive areas. Personal
identity, the transition process, and expectations are the main elements.
Through a well designed program that includes the entire family, parents
as well as children will gain a heightened awareness of the issues each
person is facing. This can provide the foundation needed to help guide
each person as they are transplanted into a new culture. The family can be
bonded through a unified strategy for living with the complexities of this
new life. The open communication and new insights that are inherent in
carefully planned pre-field family activities can provide the foundation for
the skills and attitudes for a resilient Christian family.

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11.
Adventurer, Observer, Member: Helping
MKs Appreciate Local Culture

Sally Jane Norton

Nine missionary kids sat around the breakfast table; all were

elementary age. I asked, "What do your parents do to help you like
Filipinos and being in the Philippines?" Without hesitation one after the
other responded.

"We go interesting places like the beach and the mountains."

"I go to Philippine school."

"We eat Filipino food."

"We speak Tagalog."

"We speak Tagalog, Bicol, and English!"

"We go to Sunday school. Even though I don't speak Tagalog, the

children are friendly and they speak enough English. I have friends at
church."

"My friends live near my house. We play together."

As quickly as they started they were gone. Breakfast consumed. Off

to play.

How very simple: go places, eat local food, play, study, share the

routines of life with those around you.

Our Family Experience

My mind flashed back to my own experience in helping my children

enter Philippine culture. After two weeks' residence in the country we
went on a field trip to another island and got stranded for extra days due to
a typhoon and canceled airplane flights. I was a basket case. I hadn't
known what to expect and found the pastor's home quite primitive.

Kerosene lamps and mosquito nets scared my two pre-school sons.

By the third day, I did better with dipper baths, rice at all meals, and the
staring eyes of neighbors. We all began to relax. At dinner time, my four-
year-old came running, "Mommy, Mommy, we're going to have a

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cookout!" Suddenly Philippine life started to make sense in terms my son
understood.

Member: A Bi-Cultural Son

A few years later that same son thrilled American friends with tales of

life in the barrio where he skinny-dipped in the river, ate roast dog, and
hunted birds with a slingshot. He attended local school, learned the
language within our first year, and shared his toys with all the neighbors.

As parents we had our challenges. Sometimes he would pit one

culture against the other. One day, his father questioned him about
something he had done. Smartly, he replied, "Shall I answer as an Amer-
ican or a Filipino?" Wisely, his father said, "As a Christian." Trips to the
city and time with American children were essential. At conference events
he learned American games and how to follow Western directions.

As a family we read many children's books, especially the classics.

Because he was so submerged in Philippine culture, we had to work to keep
the bridge to American culture open. We anticipated schooling in the
future at the missionary children's school, so consulted with them annually
concerning our son's social and academic progress. They became aware of
the student they would be getting and we learned about our son's needs.
We became a team working together for the future.

My first child is my bi-cultural son. As an adult he still speaks the

language, has an affinity with the Filipino people, and can move in and out
of the culture at will.

Observer: A Third-Culture Kid

My other son has a different story. He took his first walking steps on

that early field trip. The Philippines was home. Although as a
pre-schooler he spoke the language, home service in America at the age of
five banished it from his mind. For first grade he went away to boarding
school and came home on weekends. Life revolved around school and
dorm friends. In elementary school national language classes and Sunday
school at home with local children, he had impeccable pronunciation but
the language never became his own. He understood but chose not to use it.

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He always seemed to be a spectator. He understood what was going on
but chose not to participate. He is my "third-culture kid" child. His
greatest affinity is with others who are from one place, raised in another
but part of neither. He knows how to move and live in the Philippines. He
now lives in the United States without distress or discomfort. His best
friends are other missionary kids or immigrants to America.

In contrast to his brother's barrio tales, his stories are of dorm

adventures, the hammock strung high in the sampalok tree, and exploring
the caves of Corrigador. Same family, same culture and language expo-
sure, different personality, different timing.

In working with children to facilitate their adjustment and partic-

ipation in a culture, it is important to allow for individual differences. My
family illustrates two different ways to culturally connect: bi-culturally and
as a third-culture person. What are some other options for cultural
relationships?

Adventurer: Skilled at Entering

Adventurer, sampler, or spectator are other descriptive terms. The

adventurer is someone who tastes or samples aspects of a culture. He
doesn't really enter or become a participant but rather tries out various
cultural experiences. Families that move frequently from one culture to
another may identify with this description. They learn how to eat the food,
how to make the bed, how to ride the local transportation, and how to
speak a few phrases. They become skilled at entering a new place. They
know where to go, what questions to ask, how to unlock cultural
experiences. They, too, appreciate the life and peoples of a country. For
any number of reasons, they do not stay more than a few years and then
move on. An adventurer may use the culture for stimulating experiences
but without settling into local life. A spectator watches from outside but
doesn't enter.

So what can parents, teachers, schools, and house parents do in the

country of service to enhance the MKs' appreciation of and connection
with the local culture?

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Suggestions for Parents

The age of entrance to a culture makes a difference. In the pre-school

years, the parent's security in the culture is paramount to enabling the
children to enter. If the family can be learners together, likes and dislikes,
joys and fears, can be safely expressed and explored. Some things don't
taste good the first time. In the safety of the family dinner table new tastes
can be developed.

Freedom to use the language and try out phrases increases cultural

comfort. Outside the home criticism may be harsh when language is
misused. Home can be a safe haven for using one's mother tongue and for
experimentation with the new language. Remember to keep expectations
reasonable. And remember children can be cruel. Avoid pushing your
children beyond their comfort level. Lead them into new experiences.
Increase their comfort level by going along and showing them how to
participate.

Suggestions for Teachers

Once children are school age the role of parents changes. Teachers

and peers spend more time with the child and they exert influence for good
and bad. Teachers have a wonderful opportunity to open and expand a
child's world and experiences in the culture. Field trips to historical sites,
cultural displays, and museums require only organizational skills and
logistical arrangements. By developing an activity page for part of the day,
student interest and involvement can be sustained.

Teachers should explore the site prior to the trip. By learning the

limitations of the location and meeting local tour guides, teachers can
develop realistic student expectations and prepare learning activities. Often
the greatest challenge is learning the calendar of cultural events.
Sometimes daily newspapers have cultural or entertainment sections.
Another source to explore is the Department of Tourism or the Ministry of
Cultural Affairs. Embassy publications may include notices of special
local events.

Another way to connect a class to the culture is through parents of the

students. Learn about the diverse ministries and take time to visit when
possible. As knowledge grows one may capture your interest and serve as

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a tool for giving the class a cultural experience. Involve the parents in the
planning and focus clearly on the objective of the experience.

Most cultures have formal programs of education. As a teacher, doors

open for interaction with teachers in the host culture. Establish
relationships that could lay the foundation for a cultural exchange. In the
Philippines most public school classes are double the size of the MK
school class. In working out an exchange fifteen Filipino students were
selected to spend the day at the missionary school. Each MK student had a
Filipino student assigned to them. They spent the day together in all the
normal school routines and experiences.

Preparation before the experience included talking about how the MK

school might be different and what help the Filipino child might need to be
able to understand and do things our way. In return the fifteen children
from the MK school spent a day at the Filipino school. This program was
done on the elementary level by a single class, not the whole school.

A different kind of exchange has worked effectively at the middle

school level (Grades 6 8). Arrangements were made with a host country
elementary school for the middle school students to make a presentation
(teach a lesson) in the classroom. Each English class developed a lesson
they would teach to an elementary class. After the teaching experience the
host class asked questions and talked with the visiting missionary students.

The Philippines lends itself to outdoor education camps. Middle

school is a good age for a week away from school in a camp environment
focusing on spiritual life, cultural experiences, and learning outdoors.
Faith Academy rotates the venue on a three-year cycle between a volcano, a
World War II historic island battleground, and a mountain city. Outdoor
living skills, history, science, and handicrafts are always included. The
camp atmosphere nurtures relationships between the teacher and his or her
squad as they participate in a variety of activities and work together. This
is the annual highlight of the middle school year.

In the missionary context where the parents of students serve God by

helping and ministering to people, students can develop insensitive
attitudes towards the needs of others. Middle school Bible class projects
are a helpful tool for nurturing compassion. This is an age of great energy.

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The challenge is to find a physical project that can be completed in a
limited time frame by a group of energized youth.

Projects taken on in recent years by middle schoolers include the

building of a drainage ditch for a squatter community, making a
playground in the center of a poor neighborhood, and teaching VBS one
afternoon a week for one month. The teacher helped the students define
their project, guided the fund raising, and worked closely with the students
to see it completed.

High school students have different interests and needs. Those who

have grown up in the culture can be an effective bridge of relationship for
those who have arrived in the country during their high school years.
Negative or positive attitudes toward the culture are rarely hidden or
disguised. Ministry opportunities that grow out of needs in the community
provide natural venues for cross-cultural interaction. Athletic competition
with local teams creates a common playing field for meeting. The MK
school may consider hosting a tournament that in addition to the schedule
of games could include a youth rally, student music groups, performing,
testimonies, and faculty giving a gospel message.

A faculty member with experience in Awana ministry began a Sunday

morning Awana program for the local children living near the school.
School families and students signed up to serve as the Awana staff. The
program is run within the parameters of the school year and activity
schedule. More than two hundred children attend and forty people serve as
the staff, many of whom are high school students. Nine o'clock on Sunday
morning it's an impressive sight with two hundred children walking off the
hill wearing Awana tee-shirts and carrying their Bibles.

The high school co-curricular program provides other opportunities

for cultural interaction. Gospel teams develop presentations for use in
local schools and churches. Summer ministry teams provide one- to three-
week opportunities away from the school. Sports evangelism gives athletes
the chance to play as well as to witness for Christ. Physical projects at
orphanages, camps, and church buildings allow students to serve without
requiring them to articulate their faith. Other students may be ready for the
challenge of teaching vacation Bible school or counseling at camp.
Training and preparation are crucial components of an effective experience.

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Even during the school year, a ministry day requiring the participation all
high school students moves them into the community and into contact with
nationals.

Teachers need to explore cultural opportunities that may enhance the

curriculum and are unique to the cultural setting of the school. Structure
research and comparative analysis projects utilizing the local context. The
social, economic, political, and scientific concerns of a nation can become
content for skill development. An English teacher creatively used the
English translation of a local novel to develop skills of analysis and literary
interpretation. For the climax of the unit the class prepared a fiesta
celebration similar to what they read about in the novel. The entertainment
at the event included two nationals sharing how the study of that novel
influenced their personal life. New connections were made with the culture
as well as with two campus employees.

Suggestions for Boarding Home Parents

Boarding home parents have perhaps the greatest challenge in

enhancing a student's appreciation of the culture. Divergent cultural
experiences and home backgrounds come together under one roof.
Certainly understanding each family and its ministry is an important step to
building understanding. Praying daily for events in the ministry of parents
is very important. Everyone in the home can share names and
circumstances from the ministry life of each family.

When the national culture that surrounds the school is different from

the culture the children call home, the boarding home parents are
responsible to open doors of understanding. By having a Philippine dinner
on a regular basis the students developed a taste for local food. The
novelty of eating with fingers or chopsticks contributes to the experience.
Special events that include local "treats" build appreciation for local
culture. Students at one MK school couldn't wait to take a visiting
missionary to the local eating hangout, treating her to unique foods and
strange desserts.

In the boarding home setting more than elsewhere, different styles of

cultural connectedness will be evident. Boarding home parents need to
allow room for all to be comfortable and utilize the strengths of each to

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carry the others. If they are comfortable in the culture, weekend and
holiday excursions into the countryside will be successful even if some of
the students are not particularly excited.

Remember the reticence to participate may be more the type of

activity than where or who it is with. Some people just don't like to
camp--ever. Offering a wide variety of activities over the course of a year
will demonstrate the leaders' understanding of differences. Students do
better when they know the plan and expectations are clear. Even the
expectation that something will go wrong that can help them deal with the
experience should it occur.

The young elementary children said it well. Go places, eat local food,

play, study, share the routines of life with those around you. The challenge
is to continually expand one's contacts, knowledge, and relationships in the
culture so that opportunities for connecting aren't missed.

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12.

The Re-Entry Task

David C. Pollock

"Missionary kids are just kids like everyone else."

"All kids have difficult teachers and others who create stress."

"In a mobile society, many people's roots are torn up."

"Many kids have to make adjustments--new home, new friends, new

school. Why all the concern for MKs? They'll adjust OK."

It is true that we all make adjustments which, at a glance, seem

similar. The difference between the adjustments made by most people and
those made by MKs are in frequency, intensity and concurrency.

Life is a constant flow and repetition of adjustment for most MKs!

They go to and from boarding school, making geographical changes within
the same country, with the loss of their own room, favorite hideout, and
special places to play and remember. Periodically, MKs are totally
uprooted for an extended period of time to a place their parents call
"home," after which they return to what they consider home. And that
return may be to a totally new location.

Even if MKs are not leaving, their friends are. An important, special

relationship may be interrupted for one year by a furlough and extended to
two years by the furlough of the friend's family. Comings and goings of
school staff and other missionaries add to the sense of impermanence. A
grief process, in varying degrees, is the constant companion of the third-
culture kid.

Not only are the adjustments frequent, but the intensity is exacerbated

by several factors. Many of the leavings involve intimate relationships:
parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, and special friends. For many,
saying good-bye to go to boarding school at age ten parallels the experi-
ence of an eighteen-year-old departing for college. That person may never
again really live with their parents for a protracted period of time. And, as
a young child leaves the extended family at the conclusion of a furlough,
the parting seems almost permanent. Four years of separation for an eight-
year-old is half a life--almost forever.

The adjustments faced are often concurrent as well as multiple and

intense. A good example is graduation from a boarding school. The end of

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high school marks the separation from people who have become family --
as brothers and sisters, not just schoolmates. It often marks an almost final
separation from parents and physical family. It also means separation from
nationals and a country that is home. It is the departure from a culture and
a lifestyle where the person has come to belong and the entry into a new
culture and lifestyle that may be very foreign.

At the conclusion of one of our re-entry seminars last summer, the

group was saying teary good-byes. One girl from Japan said, "We get
good at saying good-bye." One young man who had been quite reserved
and quiet during the week added, "But you never get used to it." Somehow
in that moment everyone sensed the uniqueness of always adjusting. This
adjustment is often complicated by being inhibited in saying, "It hurts."
After all, how can you complain when you are doing it for Jesus?

My involvement with MKs began during my college years. Many of

my friends were MKs or international students, and I observed their strug-
gles as well as their victories. I was envious of their experiences and the
knowledge, insight, and maturity they possessed, but I ached with them in
the stress of their aloneness, disorientation, and pain. In the years that
followed, counseling returned missionaries and MKs on college campuses
became my concern. After three years in Kenya, I was convinced that
effective assistance could and should be given to missionary families.

Comfort and Intelligent Care

There are three basic reasons for pursuing this care in the MK

community. The first is sufficient in itself: missionary kids are. Their very
existence as part of the body of believers is sufficient mandate to care for
them in "bearing one another's burden and thus fulfilling the law of
Christ." The second reason is that the missionary enterprise is deeply
affected by the needs of MKs. Family concerns account for a significant
number of ministry problems and service terminations. The third reason is
that within the MK community lies great potential for leadership in
missions and the world in general.

Two basic issues must be addressed in putting the re-entry task into

proper perspective. First, the MK's potential must be developed through-
out early years and care must be given for its release. Second, part of the
release of one's potential is addressing problems through proper comfort

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and intelligent care. These problems are not all extreme or crippling, but
they can hinder the realization of one's potential.

The re-entry (entry adjustment) of MKs is not an event but a process.

Many people and agencies touch them at key points throughout their lives
and can be given assistance to do it correctly. Prior to overseas service,
parents' attitudes and skills can be developed to prepare them for the task
of raising their children overseas. Caregivers such as teachers and dorm
parents can be prepared for their tasks. MKs can be prepared for their first
major adjustment experience in overseas living.

While overseas, parents, school personnel, and a variety of others

influence MKs. Attitudes and actions shape MKs' God-view, self-view
and world-view. Expectations develop which promote either a positive
view of the future or a bleak, negative one. A truly caring community,
encompassing the church, school and family, contributes significantly to an
MK's positive development and re-entry capabilities.

The Shock of Re-Entry

It is generally accepted among cross-cultural trainers that individuals

who adjust best in a new culture have the greatest difficulty re-entering
their own. Often the third-culture kid has entered the "other" culture at a
stage in life when adaptation was most easily made (if, in fact, he wasn't
born there) and exits at a far more difficult point in life, as an adolescent.

For many MKs, the re-entry experience is really more "entry" than re-

entry. Having spent many of their developmental years in a culture other
than their own, TCKs have a sense of relationship to both host and home
cultures, but lack a sense of full membership in either. However, the most
important factor is that a major adjustment is made as a part of the
developmental process.

There are a variety of views on the shock of re-entry. Some see the

experience as a prelude to adjustment, during which time the person tends
to be bewildered, confused, lonely, and defensive. An emerging view is
that the learning-growing developmental process is intensified and
accelerated. The cycle of adjustment is an experience followed by reaction,
then reflection, and finally conceptualization; then a return to experience.
It is the learning process in microcosm.

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103

At the core of the process is the transition experience itself. Like the

small end of a funnel, it is a process through which one may quickly pass,
but it is also possible to become stuck or at least delayed in passing.

The individual starts at a point of engagement. There is commitment

to the group and a sense of belonging. The person has status and a sense
of knowing what to expect and how to respond. As the time of leaving
approaches, there are changes in attitudes and certain activities designed to
disengage one from relationships. There is a denial of sadness, rejection,
and guilt. Farewells are part of the leaving.

The heart of transition is characterized by a sense of chaos. Structure

is lost, problems are exaggerated, and the ability to understand and respond
appropriately to input may be greatly impaired. A loss of status, sense of
grief, emotional instability, and an exaggerated importance of "special"
knowledge, accompanied by a sense of isolation, anxiety, and self-
centeredness, are typical transition experiences.

These precede the entering stage, where the individual begins to

establish new relationships. He is uncertain of whom to trust but needs a
mentor, and will often act in an exaggerated way, running risks and
behaving in abnormal fashion to establish some point of acceptance and
belonging. During this period, attitudes and relationships are formed that
result in either healthy or unhealthy adjustment and development.

Re-Entry Care

During the re-entry transition the cross-cultural sojourner may need

special care to enable proper adjustment. The re-entry facilitator plays the
role of a midwife--not the cause of the birth, or responsible for the ulti-
mate outcome of the birth, but supporting the person through the trauma of
transition. Admittedly, re-entry care is limited in its total impact. In a short
period of time, one cannot undo the past or structure and guarantee the
future. But much can be done to help the sojourner maintain equilibrium,
learn basic data, and set the stage for continuing development. The extent
of positive impact is usually tied to the continuation of the flow of care.

According to Dr. Richard Brislin, a major element of re-entry prepar-

ation is doing the "work of worry." He said, "When people prepare for
unpleasant, aversive events that could occur in the future, the impact of
those adverse events is much less severe than if people did not prepare."

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(Richard Brislin, "Can They Go Home Again?" International, Educa-
tional and Cultural Exchange,

1974, 9(4), pp. 19-24.)

The work of worry means recognition of the likelihood of certain

experiences so that plans can be made to deal with them properly. Jesus
helped the disciples do the work of worry when in he said in John 15:

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first....

You do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the
world.... Remember my words, "No servant is greater than his
master." If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If
they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

James picks up the theme in his letter when he says:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials

of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith
develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so
that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Peter captures the concept in his epistle when he says, "Dear friends,

do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though
something strange were happening to you."

Each of these warnings is accompanied by two important elements:

the end product is positive maturing and growth; and Christ is always with
us. Scripture indicates that the experiences are valuable and the resources
are available.

Avoiding being surprised by the events of transition involves thinking

through the event and one's resources. In the process of re-entry, an
individual can estimate the probability of certain difficulties and prepare
for them by discussing resources and options. He or she is then in a
position to plan a course of action, including how to recover from a
particular difficult or confusing situation.

Timing and Scope

Views of when and how re-entry care should occur vary from pre-

departure workshops through re-entry seminars upon arrival to the "total
immersion" model. The best re-entry care is not a matter of either/or, but
all

. Finances, time, and personnel may dictate a less than ideal approach,

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105

but a coordinated effort by those involved with the MK on the field, upon
entry and in the early months of adjustment can be very effective.

In some ways, pre-departure preparation reaches back over the MK's

lifetime. Prior to leaving for the host country and during furloughs, parents
have a responsibility to build relationships with relatives and friends to
which the MK can return. The home church and relatives can provide a
place and resources that the MK can anticipate prior to leaving the field.
The mission board can help by providing proper information and being
available to meet and welcome the MK if others cannot.

The MK school plays a special role in re-entry. It can help MKs pre-

pare by giving them up-to-date information on college life, trends, and
styles. Pre-departure care must also include more basic preparation,
including beginning to do the work of worry. MKs must begin to think
through their new situation and develop positive but realistic expectations.

Some critical help must come from on-field services. It is extremely

important to assist an MK in proper closure of the overseas experience.
Resolution of conflicts with other MKs, school personnel, nationals, or
parents is an important part of this, as unfinished business can hamper the
process of adjustment. MKs can be helped to be reconciled to people with
whom they have had conflict prior to leaving the host country.

Adequate farewells are also important in pre-departure preparation.

Opportunity to do certain things planned but never experienced as well as
saying good-bye to places and people allows for good closure. A satisfact-
ory send-off is also important. Schools, parents, and mission personnel
should facilitate this.

A third area of pre-departure care is the development of proper

expectations. These expectations should be realistic and positive--realistic
enough to recognize that there will be conflict and distress, but positive
enough to provide an anticipation of successful adjustment. Too often,
MKs have far too negative expectations of returning to their home country.
Exaggerated fears based on misinformation do not enable healthy
adjustments.

Pre-departure preparation may be limited because the MK may not be

asking the questions for which he is given answers. If there is a lack of
previous stressful experiences, MKs may not be open to the recognition
that this time they will be on their own. However, proper instruction gives a
base for decisionmaking in the early stages of adjustment.

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The experience of re-entry is a critical point in caring for the MK, and

a re-entry seminar can play an important part. Positive results can be
gained both from an early seminar and one that takes place after the MK
has been immersed in the new culture. The value of the later seminar is
that many questions have been raised and the MK is ready for help. The
weakness is that some harmful choices may have been made which could
have been intercepted.

An early seminar can help MKs adjust expectations to be both posi-

tive and realistic, saving them from some unnecessary stresses.They can
learn strategies for dealing with the new and strange, and for coping with
chaos in transition. Grouped with other MKs from many parts of the
world, they have a sense of belonging and discover that feelings of
confusion and uncertainty are very normal. The facilitators become a link
between their world and the new culture. People who care, understand, and
deal specifically with the experience give MKs a sense of trust that allows
them to accept input.

Models

Re-entry seminars may be structured from two basic models. The

psychological model emphasizes emotional needs and leans on evaluation
and personal counseling. The cross-cultural model emphasizes cultural
variation and cross-cultural learning and adjustment. Simulation games,
role playing, and discussion sessions are major tools in this model.

The best re-entry seminar is a combination of both models. If we

perceive our task as developing and releasing the MK's potential, we face
whatever problems are interfering with that process. Evaluation becomes
the catalyst for counseling by qualified staff. However, sociological as
well as psychological needs must be addressed. Cross-cultural stresses
need to be explained and appropriate plans for coping discussed. The
approach should not be either/or, but both.

The Key to Adjustment

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107

The key to re-entry adjustment is developing a proper perspective. At

the core MKs need a perspective on the God who controls their lives.
Joseph was a "third-culture kid" who never lost his equilibrium because of
his unshakeable confidence in God's person, purpose, promise, and
process. The MK needs that perspective reinforced. One girl wrote from
college, "I do find myself lonely, and making friends is not as easy as it
would be in a group of MKs, but God is definitely the same here as he is
anywhere else in the world."

When the person's perspective of God is in place, there is a foun-

dation for building and reinforcing a proper self-view, which is critical to
making a good adjustment. Perspectives on the experience of transition
and culture shock, being an MK, values, and one's view of host and home
cultures have a framework for thinking and action.

The re-entry seminar, building on a good perspective and proper

personal view, needs to address both specific problem areas and practical
living skills. Issues include dating, social skills, establishing status,
learning how to learn in a new environment, and dealing with grief and
depression. Learning skills of banking, shopping, and time management
and tasks like telephone and laundromat use helps to build confidence.

Post re-entry care is important to the MK's ongoing development. No

true cross-cultural adjustment occurs until the person has been immersed in
that culture. At that stage, questions are clearly defined and needs are no
longer vague anxieties but specific concerns.

How do I use the library? Why are the other first-year students so

shallow? Where can I go for the holidays? Is anyone really concerned
about missions or even international affairs? Why do I feel out of it? How
do I get a driver's license? Answers to these questions and the meeting of
needs must come from a network of care.

A caring community on a Christian college campus can help by devel-

oping an MK or international club where people with common
backgrounds and interests meet intellectual, sociological, and psychological
needs. A big brother/big sister program involving MKs who are older
students establishes contact with people of similar background and
provides mentors. Hospitality from local churches, as well as a college
administration that is alert to special MK needs and provides services and
programs to meet those needs, can furnish consistent support. Counselors
who are qualified to respond to the needs of MKs should be identified and

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made available. Returned missionaries, faculty with overseas experience,
and sensitized counseling staff are good resources. Counseling care begun
in a re-entry seminar program should be followed up by counselors
qualified to work with MKs.

Churches which support the missionary family financially have a

special opportunity for practical ministry in helping with re-entry. The
church can provide a "home away from home." If preparation was made
during furloughs and there was continuing on-field contact, MKs will
quickly feel cared for. They may not always need the supporting church
base but it is great to know it is there, just in case. The home church,
mission board, and interested families must take the initiative.

Other needs of the entering MK can be met through a network of

doctors, lawyers, counselors, and home hosts who make themselves avail-
able for at least the first two years an MK is in the passport country. A
communications network is needed to facilitate this.

Good re-entry adjustment is not an event; it is a process encom-

passing the life of the cross-cultural sojourner. The input of family, school
and Christian community have structured MKs' God-view and self-view,
keys to their adjustment. Pre-departure input helps in coping with conflicts
from the past and determining expectations for re-entry. Re-entry
seminars meet sojourners at a point of crisis and help them to maintain
perspective and equilibrium during early adjustment. The ongoing care of
a variety of agencies and individuals facilitates their moving toward a point
of reasonable stability and positive forward motion.

All of us touch the MK's life at some point and can encourage others

to become involved. If care is to be made available to all MKs, there must
be concentrated effort by parents who take initiative to prepare the way and
encourage their children to take advantage of available services. It will
also require MK schools which strongly encourage, Christian colleges
which strongly recommend, and mission boards and home churches which
actively finance and help to put an effective re-entry program in place.

Proper action is based on a common awareness that we are dealing

with normal human beings who have had unique experiences and face
uniquely structured pressures. We can provide a flow of care for the mis-
sionary family that can make an impact on the world for our Lord.

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Adapted from a presentation at ICMK Manila, November 1984.

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13.

Sudden Removal from the Field

John Powell

I suppose there's nothing more frustrating for any of us than a sudden

change in plans. Yet, anyone who is involved in missions knows that may
be more the rule than it is the exception. Sudden removal from the field
creates a tremendous amount of difficulty for some people, and yet others
seem to take it in stride.

Three Scriptures which Give us Insights

First, let's look at Ephesians 4:2932. "Let no unwholesome word

proceed from your mouth, but only such a word which is good for edifi-
cation according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those
who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were
sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger
and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice, and be
kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in
Christ also has forgiven you."

As we look at this from the perspective of processes and disruptions

that go on in a sudden removal from the field, we can think both about
these specific verses and the context in which they were written. It can
prepare us for difficult transitions and the accommodations we need to
make. Being equipped as saints is the background that prepares people for
making sudden removal less disrupting.

The second passage is in Romans 5:15, which deals with processes

that follow a sudden disruption. It reads as follows: "Therefore, having
been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into
this grace in which we stand, and we exalt in hope of the glory of God."
That is the preparation part again. Next comes the part about tribulation or
disruption. "And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulation, know-
ing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance proven
character, and proven character hope, and hope does not disappoint
because the love of God has been poured out within our heart through the

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Holy Spirit who was given to us." That is one way of looking at a
successful transition process following a sudden or strong disruption.

The first part of the process is the event or tribulation or series of

tribulations. The second part is the longer process of developing perse-
verance in the circumstances, which then results in proven character and
finally a sense of hope. This process is a very deepening kind of thing for
the individual and, I believe, for the Body, resulting in being grounded once
again in the love of God in Jesus Christ. The final result is that we are not
disappointed.

The third passage is Galatians 6:15, which gives us insight about

the restoration that is sometimes necessary after sudden removal. "If any-
one is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a
spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one
another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he
is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one
examine his own work and then he will have reason for boasting in regard
to himself alone and not in regard to another, for each shall bear his own
load."

This describes an interactional process based on relationships that has

as its end result some restoration after a difficult event. It deals with being
trapped or caught in sin, but I think it also applies to any disruptive pattern
that requires restoration, whether or not sin was involved.

Three Principles

The principles which help produce healthy approach to sudden

removal are in three areas: (1) preparation that will reduce the untoward
consequences, (2) participation in transitions which is biblically based,
and (3) restoration that is based on relationship. These three principles
are basic for understanding how to assist people in situations of sudden
removal from the field.

Three Experiences

I'd like share a few personal experiences I've had over the last twenty

or twenty-five years. The first one took place in a remote mission station

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in Asia. I spent two weeks there with the dual purpose of gathering some
research data and providing some training and counseling for the people on
a large mission station. As we stepped out of the little mission plane on a
beautiful day in the tropics and walked across the grassy strip with our
heavy suitcases, the first person who came up to me said, "I need to talk to
you." I walked a little farther, and someone else said, "I need to talk to
you." When we talked, he said, "You will soon learn that two weeks ago
one of our respected colleagues was flown in restraints to an airport on his
way to return home. He had a nervous breakdown."

As those two weeks unfolded, many people talked to me about that

event. There was guilt: "We should have seen it coming. How come we
didn't?" There was grief: "What will we do without him? He had a key
part in the work and he worked so hard. He was such a good leader for
us." Some said, "Maybe he brought it on himself because he overworked
and overextended himself." Others said, "I feel so sorry for his family!
They don't know what to do now and no one knows what the outcome of
this will be." There was a question about the children who were in
boarding school and what they would do. Sudden removal from the field is
a tremendously difficult thing, not only for the family but for the
community. I saw firsthand the ripples of response in the community.

In another Asian city, my wife and I met a charming couple in their

early forties, and asked if this was where they had always worked. They
looked at each other knowingly and laughed. The husband said, "No, this
is our third mission field. The first one was during the Vietnam War. We
returned after furlough, and couldn't go back to our house. Everything was
gone." Sudden removal from the field by extraneous circumstances. I
asked about the second one and he said, "We went to a neighboring
country, went on furlough again, and guess what? When we came back our
house had been burned and all of our goods were gone again." Sudden
removal from their place of work. As my wife Bev and I interacted with
them, there was a tremendous sense of grace in this couple despite the
tribulations that they had suffered. They had persevered and had proven
character. I asked, "What if this happens again? Isn't it hard on you and
your children and your family back home?" "Yes, it is. We hope it won't
happen, but if it does, our hope is that we'll be directed then to the place
where we're supposed to be." Sudden removal from the field.

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The third situation spanned a long period of time. It began in the

basement of our house where we met with a few students. One couple was
studying linguistics so they could be Bible translators in West Africa. The
young potential missionary shared very personally with the group. He said,
"You know, I really want to go to West Africa, but I'm not sure that I have
my theology worked out in a way that will help me cope with the hardships
that I am going to have." In due time they were sent to West Africa, and
we had an opportunity to visit them a few years later. We could see they
were gaining tremendous respect with the nationals out in the tribal
allocation. We kept in touch with them through prayer letters and through
personal notes at Christmas.

Then we got a letter that said, "Please pray. He has suddenly been

removed from the field because of illness." He had some obstruction in his
lower abdomen, was unable to eat for several days, and went to the local
small hospital. Then suddenly there was such acute pain that he was
evacuated quickly to a European hospital. There they learned that his lower
bowel was filled with cancer. Sudden removal from the field. Think of the
awful trip for that family when they had to gather their three children for an
overnight flight to Europe. Think of the uncertainty. After his surgery I
can remember his meeting me in Europe, and this vibrant, athletic,
suntanned man that I had grown to know and love when he was at
Michigan State was as thin as can be. After six months he told us, "The
cancer has come back, and it's only a matter of time."

They returned to Michigan, and in the last weeks of his life we spent

some very precious time together. As the cancer progressed and he went in
and out of lucidity, he would sometimes put his finger on a portion of
Scripture and ask me to read it. The last time I saw him, I read a passage
of Scripture from the Psalms, then I turned to him and said, "Let me ask
you, how's your theology working?" He said, "I have a theology that's
really working, and I look forward to being with the Lord in a few days."
Sudden removal from the field, but a sense of restoration and hope. Their
children are grown now and his wife continues to make a real impact
working with refugees in Europe.

Sudden removal from the field: it affects the person, the family, the

community, the mission. It really affects all of us.

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Five Commonalities

There are five commonalities that we can draw from these cases.

First, all certainly are cases of sudden removal. Second, all have a
disruptive effect on a number of people and communities. Third, all
involve a sense of loss, and anyone who is going to help with that must
understand the grief process. Fourth, they also require some adaptation.
Fifth, most, if properly handled, can produce growth, hope, and recon-
ciliation.

Sudden removal from the field can happen for a variety of reasons:

illness, terrorist activities, break-ins, kidnaping, threats of death, conflict
with home leadership, conflict with home church, conflict with nationals--
there are many relational experiences that result in sudden removal from
the field. Other reasons include violence within the family, sexual abuse,
wife or husband abuse, unstable political situation, sexual immorality, and
on and on. Many different events can result in sudden removal from the
field, and it always affects many people.

Tasks of the Helper

One of the first tasks for those trying to assist people is to try

stabilize the situation and the person or family as quickly as possible. If
possible, the person should be given some clear reasons as to why this
happened, so they can make sense of it. Any time there is a sudden
disruption, the natural human response is to review the event again and
again. People wonder if they could have done something differently. Was
there something they didn't understand? It's a natural part of the process.

The second task is to restore some sense of control or predictability.

Any time there is a sudden loss, particularly if it's a violation of the person
in some way, there is a tremendous sense that he or she has lost control and
predictability. During my own training in a VA hospital, a patient came in
one day who was a truck driver and had had some difficulty out on the
highways. He came into emergency intake, and the psychiatrist there did
something that I have always remembered. As soon as the necessary things
were taken care of, the psychiatrist asked, "Where is your truck?" The man
looked at him and said where it was. The psychiatrist said, "We'll make

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arrangements to have it pulled in some place where it is safe." The man
thanked him. Already there was a sense of restoration and control. Several
other very practical steps were taken.

That is the third task. Determine what the person's practical needs

are so that they can begin a good process of transition which will lead to a
successful outcome from the sudden removal.

Crisis vs. Transition

In order to understand sudden removal, we need to examine two

particular areas. One is the nature of crisis, and the other is the nature of
transition. The two are very closely related, yet very different. Crisis is
what begins the process that is initiated by the unexpected. Transition is
what completes a normal human process. The crisis is the trigger; the
transition is the completion.

Sudden removal is not very different from other types of crises. It is

important to understand that the severity of the crisis is not determined by
the objective nature of the event itself, but by people's interpretation of the
event. The couple from Vietnam who lost their entire household twice did
not particularly interpret their loss as a severe crisis. They were able to
adapt to it as within the normal range of events. Other people might return
from furlough and find some important items missing, and it's a crisis. It's
the interpretation of the event, not the event itself, that makes the
difference.

The nature of transition is also important to understand. David C.

Pollock has presented a model of five stages of transition. In a normal
transition a person's focus narrows down more and more on the process of
leaving, but then before they have completed the psychological leave-
taking, they begin to think about the next step or the new sphere of
activity. This looking ahead helps to make a smooth transitional process.

In a crisis such as a sudden removal from the field, however, there is a

sense of things going along normally, and then all of a sudden it just gets
closed off. You feel lost because you don't know how to predict things or
how to control or influence what happens. There is a gap between the time
your ongoing activities come to a sudden halt and the time you can pick up

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and begin to make a more orderly transition. That in-between period of
time is very critical in helping the person who has experienced sudden loss.

Let me suggest three particular areas as examples to look at. There

has been an increasing frequency of cases of sexual immorality, sexual
abuse or other destructive, unbiblical behaviors. What happens to the
person who has been involved in that, then caught and suddenly removed
from the field? Think of the loneliness and rejection and anxiety, and
probably the abject sinfulness and shame that that person feels. What is
our responsibility as a missions community for restoration of persons in
that situation? Or do we simply reject them and say we will have nothing
else to do with them?

Take a situation like the missionaries to Vietnam. Do we have a

responsibility to provide some practical assistance for someone who has
ost all their possessions?

Consider someone like the missionary from West Africa who, with his

family, is thrust into an alien environment, in an unfamiliar medical setting,
then sent back to the States wondering if he is going to live or die. What is
the responsibility to his wife and children? What is the responsibility to
the people he has left with his translation work back in West Africa?
Those are issues that need to be addressed.

We said that the commonalities are sudden removal, disruptive

effects, loss, requirement for adaptation, and the fact that the experience
may produce growth. The key dynamic to remember when assisting
someone who has experienced sudden removal is the sense of loss. No
matter what the cause of removal is, there is an acute sense of loss.
Effective intervention for people who experience sudden removal is
preparation for various types of losses. People are prepared over a long
period of time for coping with the kinds of things involved in sudden
removal by their walk with God as expressed in Ephesians 4. There is loss
of much more than just the work. There is the deeply personal loss of a
sense of esteem. There is the loss of hope. There may be the loss of
whatever joy the person has found. There is a loss of respect, a loss of
confidence, even a loss of competency, or inner stability. The more people
are prepared by grounding themselves in the Word, the easier they will be
able to make the required adaptation.

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We all have things happen to us in our lives--beautiful things, terrible

things, and we need to think about them and process them. While they are
happening, there isn't time to ponder them. We need to sort them out,
arrange them on the shelves of our minds. Someone who has been on the
mission field and experiences sudden removal needs the time to review
those experiences--to recapitulate the memories and arrange them on the
shelves of the mind.

The most critical task in helping someone who has been suddenly

removed from the field is to listen to their pain, to hear their story. It's to
be patient with their process and to be there in such a way that you become
Christ's person for their gradual steps toward restoration. Many of us,
unfortunately, want people to be busy and accomplish things when what
they need most is simply somebody who will be there and listen and help
them through the crisis and transitional process.

The three passages of scripture that we looked at had to do with

helping others be ready for, respond to, or be restored from sudden re-
moval. It is a real challenge for us as a mission community to help our own
who are, as Marjorie Foyle has put it in the title of her book, "honorably
wounded" for whatever reason in the service of the Lord. Many people
experience something like post-traumatic stress disorder or other kinds of
symptoms after a sudden disruption, especially if they are not able to move
through the whole process in a healthy way.

First and foremost, our task for those who have been suddenly

removed from the field is a relational task. In a relational context, whether
through a program or an individual, we can help them grapple with some of
the spiritual or theological questions they inevitably ask. We can help meet
practical needs and thereby enhance the process of restoration. We can
help to meet needs for meaning and understanding. Finally, we can help
them be restored.

Comments and Discussion:

Participant:

Many MKs have experienced sudden removal from the

field. They have no control over what happens to them, and there is a
tremendous sense of loss for children. They may expect to leave after high
school, but when they leave during the middle years, there is always a sense

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that they may never get back because they have no control. It is important
for parents to remember that our children are also experiencing sudden
removal from the field when we leave.

John Powell:

Children have not yet had an opportunity to develop

the adaptive processes or the maturity that most adults have. That puts
more responsibility on the parents. It is important for parents to have
relationships with other adults who are experiencing similar things, so that
they can deal with their sense of loss and their lack of control and
predictability.

Participant

: In my experience, sudden removals from the field have

been the unhappy, dishonorable types of discharge, where sin is involved.
How can you help the people who are left behind deal with their feelings?
They feel guilt and agonize about why they didn't notice or intervene. Yet
if they talk about it, it sounds like gossip or hashing over the person's
faults when he's not there to defend himself. How can the ones left behind
deal with removal?

John Powell:

It is important to deal with sin, and it is very important

to get accurate, simple, necessary information, but not more than that.
That's the starting place. Then someone who is good at leading
discussion or facilitating group process needs to conduct one or two or
more meetings where people can say what they need to say in an atmos-
phere of reconciliation and hope. One parallel to that on our campus is
when there has been a serious accident or injury, murder, or suicide. The
procedure that works best is to have someone come into the dorm or living
unit and encourage people to process what happened. Almost always there
is someone who emerges in a small group of people who is seen as a
caregiver, whom people go to and trust. That would be the ideal person to
facilitate. Then it is contained in such a way that it is not gossip, yet
people are freed from the burden of their worries and thoughts.

It is better to err on the side of minimum disclosure rather than

maximum disclosure in cases involving sin.

Participant:

Sometimes there is dysfunction on mission fields be-

cause there is no opportunity to process emotion. This issue is one that
MKs deal with, continuous loss and losses never grieved. I sense that I
have numerous losses that I've never realized I needed to grieve.

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John Powell:

During my mid-thirties I realized that I had some

ungrieved losses. I had grown up in a very small rural Midwestern town.
As an adult, I came to realize that there was some unfinished business.
When business took me to a city about 150 miles from the town where I
grew up, I found myself planning an extra day or two in that town. I went
back to the places where I had played as a boy and recalled some very early
childhood events. I got in touch with my sense of loss that I didn't have
those any more. I stood by the lake one day remembering an event that had
happened with my little brother and just cried and cried as I realized some
things that would never be that way again. That was a tremendously
freeing experience.

My childhood experience was fairly normal, but think about the

repeated losses, the separations, the transitions, that people in missionary
service experience. They need more time to think about those experiences,
to ponder and relive them and then let go of them. That can be part and
parcel of their devotional time.

In my experience, the three things that come up again and again that

prevent this processing are 1) overwork, 2) lack of time for devotions or
reflection, 3) interpersonal conflict. All of them prevent the important
growth processing that then frees you from your burdens. When you are
free, then you can be there for people who are experiencing sudden
removal, and without your even saying a word they sense a comfort in your
presence which helps them.

Participant:

How can we identify people who suffer from the

secondary effects of a crisis, who fall through the cracks when we are intent
on ministering to the person who has experienced the crisis?

John Powell:

Some people either put up a good front or are very

quiet and cooperative. They are like the nonassertive child who is sitting
day after day in the classroom, hurting inside. One practical thing that can
be done is to have a regular review for people, a personal check-up. This
can be done by someone who is skilled in pastoral care, a sensitive field
administrator, or even someone on an ad hoc basis. There should be no
sense of reporting to anybody, but the opportunity to sit down with
someone and review where you are in your growth and your work.

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There is a mission group for whom I've done pre-field evaluations for

many years. It was built into their program to have the person come back
and see me during each furlough. Sometimes we would talk for a number
of hours, sometimes just an hour or two. As I related to some of these
people over a fifteen-year period, we looked forward to our regular
conversations. Most of us don't work with that kind of longitudinal
history, but we can build in a periodic review where a person sits down and
says how he's doing and knows that at least one other person is going to be
concerned.

Based on a presentation made at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

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14.

Preparing Our MKs for College

Beth Wyse

As an MK caregiver who travels throughout the United States visiting

college MKs, I have observed a variety of their responses to life in
America. I am particularly concerned about MKs who seem to be inade-
quately prepared for the societal realities in which they find themselves. A
few enter college fully capable of handling the situations they encounter.
The majority enter hesitantly, and over the four years develop into mature,
capable, functioning adults. However, some individuals seem to be nearly
incapable of functioning at the adult level expected once they leave the
structured, cloistered, academic community they knew on the mission field.
Parents, MK schools and mission personnel need to work together to
prepare these teens for entry into U.S. society.

MK schools have done an excellent job of preparing students academ-

ically. Also, many MK school graduates seem more mature than their
monocultural counterparts. However, I regularly see unnecessary gaps in
the societal preparation of these otherwise well-rounded students. There
are certain skills, attitudes, and qualities that MKs need for successful
college experience. I propose that the following list of competencies should
be developed in students prior to high school graduation.

In this context, "competency" refers to skills which the better than

average teen should strive to develop. Although few (if any) individuals
will acquire all of the skills listed, they are reasonable goals to pursue. No
one factor can be cited as evidence for, or lack of, personal maturity. Every
child is different. Even siblings may be total opposites, either in personality
or development. So consideration must be given to each area in light of the
individual.

This checklist is offered as a list of specific issues to consider as you

try to determine your teen's college readiness. You will need to adapt it to
fit your particular situation. It is not always possible to have had some of
the experiences described here. That is not an indication of someone's
failure as a parent, but points out the need for orchestrating situations

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(probably in the U.S.) where they can occur. Ideally, this would happen
during the junior year or the summer after the junior year of high school.

Ideally, a student entering college will demonstrate proficiency in the

following areas:

1) Emotional stability: possesses the self-confidence needed to

initiate relationships, make decisions, and enter into U.S. society.

· Has a sense of one's own limits and can say "no," even to fun

things, rather than overschedule.

· Feels free to enjoy oneself and have fun in group settings.
· Can honestly admit mistakes, apologize to those wronged, and

then move on without being burdened with guilt or
self-recrimination.

· Can identify one's own symptoms of homesickness and knows

how to address them in healthy ways.

· Demonstrates ability to control the extreme mood swings that

often mark the earlier teen years.

2) Practical knowledge: possesses the skills needed for inde-

pendent living in the U.S. such as driving, banking, and conducting
ordinary business.

· Has a driver's license. (This or another official ID is needed for

travel on U.S. airlines.)

· Can call an unknown business and arrange service such as

telephone, electric, delivery, or mail order.

· Can make travel arrangements on public transportation and travel

alone or with a peer without undue emotional stress.

· Can use a calling card or prepaid phone card and a cellular phone.
· Reads the fine print when signing up for music or book clubs, etc.
· Has a frequent flyer account.
· Sorts and does laundry using coin-operated machines.
· Can care for a car; i.e., knows how to pump gas at a self-service

station, can check and add oil to a car engine, and knows what to
do when various dash warning lights go on in a car.

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· Can perform routine household tasks; e.g., cook basic meals, load

and run a dishwasher, and use a microwave.

· Can safely start and run a lawnmower (guys and girls!).
· Knows how to change a diaper (guys and girls!).
· Knows to call emergency 911 and/or emergency road service.

3) Spiritual development: demonstrates the maturity to associate

with a local church as well as the spiritual discernment and personal
morality to cope with temptation in a world of freedom.

· Has established one's own relationship with a church youth group.
· Has a reasonably positive attitude toward churches in one's home

assignment country.

· Has a sense of belonging in at least one home assignment church.
· Has an understanding of the manipulative practices of dangerous

religious groups (new cults) and is equipped to resist the warm
fuzzies they often use to hook unsuspecting people.

· Has maintained consistent, self-motivated daily devotions.

4) Financial responsibility: handles money well, understands and

uses a budget (sees the big picture, not just the cash available at the
moment), saves up money prior to making a purchase, and understands
the cost of living on one's own.

· Has saved for a significant purchase.
· Is given a predetermined amount of spending, clothes money, etc.,

in a lump sum and can stretch it to last a given period of time.

· Uses a simple written budget and can save a percentage of

earnings for future, planned use.

· Has a checking account, can reconcile bank statements and knows

how much money is actually available.

· Understands about coupons, rebates, and sales, and shops around

rather than buying on impulse.

· Tithes a portion of one's money.
· Can use a checking account and an ATM card.

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· Pays for long distance phone calls (sees the bill and identifies

one's own calls).

· Understands the dangers and traps of easy credit card access.

5) Communication/Social skills: demonstrates confidence

initiating conversations and can clearly yet tactfully articulate needs,
feelings, opinions, and suggestions.

· Contributes thoughtful opinions in discussions with peers and

adults.

· Chooses to introduce oneself to others in a new setting.
· Chooses friends wisely.
· Tactfully offers dissenting opinions.
· Establishes and maintains substantial friendships in which one can

give as much or more than one receives.

· Has a number of close friends of both genders.
· Has established limits in physical relationships with the opposite

sex based on one's own convictions.

· Understands the sexual feelings and temptations one is

experiencing currently and will face even more intensely in
college.

· Knows basic guidelines of public conduct and safety in large

North American cities (e.g., avoids eye contact, is aware if
someone may be following, knows how to carry a purse or wallet,
avoids unlit areas, travels in groups at night).

6) Responsible behavior: Accomplishes what is expected without

outside prodding, completes tasks in a timely fashion, recognizes and
voluntarily does household chores, rarely makes excuses, and initiates
communication with the responsible person when he or she cannot
complete a task as expected.

· Completes tasks without parental or supervisory pressure.
· May have a messy room, but keeps one's "junk" picked up in

more public areas.

· Doesn't borrow without permission.
· Makes appropriate arrangements for schedule changes.

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· Takes initiative to see a task and do it well.
· Shows appropriate respect for authority (teachers, school admin-

istrators, church leaders, police, adults in general).

· Can visit a doctor alone, discuss symptoms, plan and ask pertinent

questions, and handle taking medications. Knows health history.

7) Identity awareness: has a healthy understanding of who one

is, knows own strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrates appropriate
autonomy.

· Understands characteristics of a TCKs (Third Culture Kids) and

how they have been impacted.

· Can identify three personal strengths and weaknesses.
· Is comfortable with the freedom of making personal decisions and

is not overly swayed by group pressure.

· Has had a growth experience going against the group.
· Is relatively content with own physical appearance.

8) Decision making: understands the decision-making process

(seeking advice, evaluating the pros and cons), accepts the conse-
quences of decisions, and learns from mistakes.

· Has freedom to make real decisions about significant things such

as when and how to study, curfew, bedtime, dating.

· Draws up a list of pros and cons when making important

decisions.

· Consults appropriate friends (peer and non-peer), family, and non-

family for input before making a final decision.

· Is allowed to spend one's own money and is not bailed out when

one runs out or is in debt to others.

· Has been given and willingly accepts the responsibility to make

the final decision about which college to attend.

· Has made at least one poor decision, suffered the consequences,

and learned from the experience.

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9) Work ethic: understands the commitments of employment,

importance of arriving on time, not using work time for personal
activities, and avoiding unauthorized use of equipment and materials.

· Finishes tasks on time, in the way the supervisor expected.
· Has worked for an employer outside the mission community.
· Tries to do a good job rather than just put in time.
· Is willing to work overtime or stay late if employer requests.
· Has confidence to ask a supervisor for help or a change in

schedule.

· Can conduct oneself appropriately in a job interview.
· Can determine if a job is appropriate (skills required, flexibility of

hours, security issues, transportation, etc.).

10) Time management: balance between studies and social

activities; not unduly stressed out by responsibilities, and makes good
decisions about sleep, proper food, and recreation.

· Sets own bedtime and curfew using good judgment.
· Gets to appointments, classes, and events on time without

constant prodding from adults.

· Is responsible for getting himself or herself up in the morning.

Hindrances

Many circumstances may contribute to an MK's lack of appropriate

development. I have more often seen serious deficiencies in female MKs.
The following factors seem to contribute to weak spots in an MK's
development.

First, a large age difference between the student and the parents.

Many older parents do not really understand their own teen and are even
less informed about teen life and culture in general. This leads to
unrealistic expectations about the student's experience in the U.S. and may
contribute to inadequate preparation.

Second, an overprotective or isolated environment (either in a

primitive setting or a Christian "bubble") can prevent a student from
developing normal independence. Independence is best learned in the

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balance of freedom and responsibility, with opportunities to fail in a
supportive environment.

Third, parents may be uncomfortable relating to today's young career

women. Some girls describe being treated as princesses while growing up.
If their most significant role models demonstrate traditional homemaking
roles, these girls may be ill-equipped to live as single adults.

Fourth, a child who is used to a mother or servants doing everything

often finds routine tasks stressful. Adults sometime think MKs are lazy and
unappreciative. The inability of MKs to do their part without being asked
can be a significant point of friction in relationships.

These same kids often are a frustration to employers. All kids go

through the shock of their first job where they are expected to do things
they either don't like or consider to be beneath them--usually around age
16. An MK may have a first job at 18 or 19 without having learned this
valuable lesson. One who rebels, either openly or passively ("forgetting" to
do the unpleasant task), will quickly be without a job.

Fifth, parents who express an exaggerated fear of the U.S. set their

kids up for a difficult time. I have often heard missionaries say, "I'm sure
glad my kids aren't growing up in the United States." Though I sympathize
to some extent with this sentiment, it is detrimental to kids who hear it
often. It implies that everyone in the U.S. is somehow flawed. A student
who has this subconscious attitude will resist fitting in and can easily
alienate oneself from the very people one so desperately needs.

Finally, the lack of a true employer-employee experience as a young

teen can be a significant disadvantage in the world of work. Many MKs
come from cultures where promptness is not highly valued. In the U.S.
workplace, even being a few minutes late more than once may be a serious
problem. Most MKs have the wonderful cross-cultural skill of flexibility.
They often assume that others are as adaptable as they are when a change
of plans is necessary. When they make a last minute decision not to go to
work because a good friend from high school just dropped in unannounced,
they fail to understand why their employer is so frustrated with them.
These actions are often interpreted as an I-don't-care attitude and are
seldom tolerated.

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When a preponderance of these factors is present, teens often find the

United States a fearful and overwhelming place. They seem to get stuck in
the hibernation stage of cross-cultural adaptation, and they do only what is
absolutely necessary to survive. It is at this point that MKs frequently talk
about returning home to the country of their childhood. I fear for them if
they return as children in adult bodies. However, I am equally concerned
for their well-being when they are forced to remain in the U.S. without any
help.

Solutions

We are often tempted to think nothing can be done until the teen

graduates and moves to the U.S. Significant, planned preparation must
begin much earlier than that. It may take major orchestration on the part of
parents, but if they want to save their child a mountain of stress, the effort
is worth it. Here are several things that parents should consider and schools
should encourage.

1) Time in the U.S. during high school

A furlough is invaluable if accompanied by a capable mentor who can

introduce the MK to the realities of young adult life. If this does not happen
naturally, parents need to be proactive in seeking out such a person to be a
peer of the parent or a young adult. If the mentor is a peer of the parent, he
or she must be able to relate well and earn the respect of the teens of the
community or church. Expertise does little good if the teen perceives the
mentor as an authority figure rather than a caring friend.

A young adult in his or her twenties who demonstrates maturity and

personal common sense will have a great impact on any teen MK. High
school students naturally look up to and appreciate a college student or
recent graduate who takes an interest. The MK sees this person as someone
who can interpret U.S. youth culture for him. This person has almost
instant credibility because he or she is young enough to have relevant
personal experience to share, rather than relating lessons learned a
generation ago.

When a furlough does not fall during the late high school years, an

independent home country experience would be appropriate. The limited
time frame of the summer after the junior year gives the student

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opportunity to develop confidence and the ordinary skills needed for life in
the U.S., without the sense of being totally alone.

Parents will need to find a supportive environment for their child.

Every home that volunteers may not be appropriate. A host family needs to
understand the purpose of this time. Parents will want to communicate a
number of areas where specific attention needs to be given: to banking,
driving, getting and keeping a job, and using a laundromat, just to name a
few. While you don't want to overwhelm a host family with these tasks or a
sense of rearing your child, they need to understand that these experiences
are ones you cannot provide for your child at home.

A simple evaluation form of three or four questions which hosts can

fill out every couple of weeks might help them facilitate this growth
experience. It will certainly communicate that you want and value their
assessment and insights concerning your child's development.

By doing this at intervals throughout the summer all of you will be

able to note progress. It would also be wise to invite them to identify
additional areas that may need continued attention throughout the school
year. They will no doubt mention typical teen issues that you have no way
of knowing about, since teen culture in the U.S. changes almost completely
every four years.

2) Onfield experiences

Giving children appropriate, yet significant, ministry involvement and

leadership opportunities will go a long way in preparing them for what lies
ahead. Both the MK school and the parent should cooperate to develop
these ministry skills. Parents, if your child has been involved in ministry
while away at boarding school, look for ways to capitalize on that at home
as well. Though you will naturally want to slow down and spend
significant time with your kids while they are home on vacations, your
complete withdrawal from ministry responsibility can be a disservice to
your children. Giving them positive, meaningful involvement in your
ministry will instill in them a self-confidence that they can draw on in
difficult circumstances in years to come.

Teens need an environment where progressive problem solving and

decision making experiences are routine. With each year of increased
decision making they should be given more true freedom and respon-

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sibility. To do this they need an environment which offers the real possi-
bility of failure, and includes evaluation so they can benefit from their
mistakes.

MK schools need to be particularly aware of this decision making

issue. Too often the only real options are to obey or disobey. For the
school, it is much easier to have black-and-white rules about all important
areas of social conduct. Unfortunately, this can set up a student for failure
in college, where even the finest Christian schools will give students much
more freedom, expecting students to make good adult decisions.

Often MKs who are used to having rules clearly spelled out are

somewhat overwhelmed by the freedom they suddenly have. As a result
freedom, a very good thing, becomes a bad thing because the student has
no sense of balance and tries to do everything he or she has never been
allowed or had the opportunity to do. Even the students who do not rebel
may find it hard to say No to all of the fun activities they encounter. An
excess of clubs, games, parties, dates, movies, or discussions may crowd
out time for sleep and studies and will certainly drain the pocketbook.

We MK caregivers, whatever our title--parent, educator, field or

mission leader--must work cooperatively in our effort to minimize the
hindrances and maximize the solutions, as we empower students with the
skills and strengths they need to handle young adult roles in the United
States.

Reprinted with minor editing by permission from Interact, December

1996 and May 1997.

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15.

Making Career Choices

David L. Wickstrom

The issue of deciding on a career, and specifically knowing what is

just the right niche to fit into is at best a difficult process, and at worst a
confusing and agonizing hot issue for missionaries and MKs. Why is this
the case? There are several reasons. First of all, there is the view one
holds of what is God's will. A number of years ago, Gary Friesen wrote a
book called Decision Making and the Will of God in which he contrasted
what he called "the traditional view" with a sound exegesis of what
Scripture actually says about work and careers. The traditional view,
according to Friesen, is illustrated by the metaphor of a target. There is
one bull's-eye, one type of work to which one should aspire and which is in
God's will, and if a person misses the bull's-eye he or she is settling for
less than God's best and is outside God's will.

With careful exegesis and solid analytical thinking, Friesen argues

that there are numerous careers a person can choose, that God is more
interested in the character of each person than in a particular kind of work,
and that any job is honorable so long as it is not sinful or forbidden in
Scripture. Friesen goes on to point out that how a person makes a decision
should include such things as listening to the wisdom of others, paying
attention to and identifying one's own gifting and interests, and praying
fervently about the decision.

The book has been a best-seller among Christians because of the

refreshing freedom offered, and while it has been recommended reading by
many mission boards. However, the message of the book has been
overlooked, ignored, or contradicted by long-held beliefs about how God
leads people in the area of career decision-making. For missionaries,
particularly, a sense of "call"--knowing or feeling that God has led them
to be missionaries--has caused consternation for some when they went
overseas and found that their gifts, talents, interests, skills, and personality
style were either unwanted, unneeded, or detrimental to the work in the
country to which they felt called. For others who may have had to return to
their sending country because of health, lack of financial support, family
problems, or civil unrest in the country of service, confusion and dismay

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have reigned. The missionaries (and sometimes their churches) have often
asked whether they had misread God and "missed the bull's-eye" or
wondered if there might be some sin in their lives which prevented them
from being effective. Numerous other explanations have been offered as
well, but for many people confusion, guilt and pain remain, and there is
little freedom in choosing a new career.

For some MKs raised in a missionary ethos and taught by word or

action that each person needs a specific call or sense of "knowing God's
will about a career," there can be confusion of a similar sort. When they
"don't get a specific call" or cannot ascertain exactly what is God's will,
they may feel unspiritual, guilty, or somehow like they are second-hand
citizens in God's kingdom; otherwise they would have gotten the word
about what God wanted them to do.

As a result, many MKs decide, either out of excruciating discomfort

with the process or because it is familiar, that they have been called to be
missionaries like their parents. For many of them, returning either to the
country where they grew up or to a similar country is comfortable and is
accompanied by such a "sense of peace" that they decide this must have
indeed been God's will. That is, until trouble hits, at which time the MK
may decide a bad decision had been made! Dismay and confusion may
then reign again.

For others, confusion about career decisionmaking occurs because

they do not know enough about themselves or about what careers are
available, so they wander from job to job with little sense of fulfillment or
effectiveness. This can be especially true for missionaries who have had to
return from the field prematurely or who are of retirement age but do not
want to fade over the horizon with no purpose or meaningful work in their
lives. It can also be true for MKs who have returned to the sending country
upon graduation from high school overseas, and who do not know what is
the next step for them educationally or vocationally. Especially in remote
areas of service or in schools with limited facilities or information about
career choices in the "home" country, neither missionaries nor MKs can
make career plans. How does one make a thoughtful, well-informed
choice?

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This writer concurs with Friesen that there are many choices available

to the typical returned missionary or MK, and that God is much more
interested in developing character than that each person be in a certain
career. That is not to say that God is not interested in what we do; instead
he gives us the means of finding out what would help us to glorify him
most effectively, by who we are and by what we do. Research and the
wisdom of God's Word give us clues about the steps to take to make a
wise and well-thought-out decision.

Factors to Be Considered

Research indicates that there are eight different factors which need to

be considered in order to be most effective and content in the work we do.
They are: abilities, skills, interests, personality and personal style,
messages from family of origin, personal values, vision and goals, and
stage of development in life. By accurately identifying these characteristics
each person is better equipped to choose the particular niche into which to
fit.

Abilities

The first area is that of abilities, those characteristics of a person

which are similar to the Scriptural concept of gifts, and the pattern of
abilities in each person as unique as such physical characteristics as
gender, hair and eye color, or height and weight. Abilities do not improve
with use, nor do they deteriorate with disuse. In this way they differ from
skills, which improve with practice and use and deteriorate when not used.
For example, a person might have musical abilities but not know how to
play a piano (a skill). With enough motivation and practice a person with-
out musical abilities might become very proficient in playing the piano, but
not as skillful as someone who practices and has musical abilities as well.
Abilities also make the development of a skill easier and faster.

When a person has certain abilities and performs a task easily, it may

be puzzling when someone notices it as something special, and he or she
may respond with, "What's so special? It's just something I do. Can't
everyone?" One's ability pattern is usually evident by age 14, though some
people have specific spiritual gifts which may be endowed upon them after
conversion and not have been present or noticed prior to the conversion

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experience. At the same time, it should be noted that "every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of
Lights" (James 1:17); therefore, all our abilities (gifts) are from God and
have spiritual significance. We are most effective when we use our
abilities and develop skills to go with them. But when we do not know our
abilities and therefore do not use them, we are less effective than we could
be.

Skills

Many people have difficulty identifying their skills, not realizing that

they may have developed skills through life experiences. For example, an
MK who helped parents with evangelism through personal witnessing and
tract distribution may have developed linguistic, communication, obser-
vation, and organizational skills necessary for inventorying materials and
for scheduling trips--without realizing it. When these skills are identified,
one can make use of them by transferring them to other career areas.

Interests

A third factor to keep in mind is interests. In Philippians 2:13, Paul

writes, "It is God who is at work in you both to will (to want) and to do (to
perform) of his good pleasure." In his book, Friesen points out that it is
often by the desires and longings of our hearts that God leads us into a
career that best fits who we are. Those who are not really interested in a
particular area are usually not as effective or motivated, and they often
burn out more quickly.

Upon his return to the United States, one missionary said, "I've

always wanted to restore and sell old houses, and I have some experience
and abilities which might help me do that. I don't have enough money to
put my kids through college, so maybe I can earn it this way." He did just
that and was happier than he had been in years, to say nothing of his family
who had suffered with him in situations where his gifts, abilities, and
experience had not been appreciated or used and in which he was extremely
unhappy.

On the other hand, interests alone are not the sole factor to consider in

making a career decision. Some high school students decide to go to
college to become medical doctors because they have always been
interested in the idea of helping people and making a lot of money and have

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found the subject to be fascinating. Unfortunately, when they got to
college they found they did not have the abilities, nor did they do well
enough in the classes to make it into medical school. It is also unfortunate
that most high school counselors and programs give primary consideration
to grades and SAT or ACT scores in combination with the expressed
interests of the student, and push the student in a direction which may not
fit other characteristics of who he or she is.

Personality and Personal Style

Many people find themselves in positions in which their particular

personality style does not fit. For example, a person who is outgoing and
talkative and who likes a variety of things will just not fit into a position
being left alone in a room making widgets all day long. By the same token,
a more reserved person who prefers research and learning everything
possible about a particular area will not function well when expected to
interact with people constantly with little time for quiet research or
contemplation. A person who is very detail oriented and who needs a plan
for every activity will often do very poorly when placed where schedules
are of no use and materials are not available when needed. This often
occurs with people who are used to structure moving to a very unstructured
culture in the two-thirds world. Fitting a person into a situation which
matches his or her personality and melds well with other people is crucial;
otherwise, both the person and the co-workers may be frustrated.

Messages from the Family of Origin

One factor seldom considered is that of messages from one's family

of origin. These messages are extremely important. They may be simply
absorbed by osmosis, as parents give direction by how they live and what
they do. Is it any wonder that at one point several years ago 35% of new
missionaries were MKs? Likewise, doctors, lawyers, and ministers often
come from families in which there was a doctor, lawyer, or minister. The
influence may be either subtle or overt; for example, "We have had a
doctor in the family for fifteen generations, and we don't have one yet.
You'll make us proud when you get your doctor's degree."

Other messages may be more about style e.g., parents who respond to

anyone who needs help at any time of day or night. Or the parents may be
successful financially or are frugal savers who keep tight control on their
money and encourage their children to do the same. Identifying these

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patterns can help a person decide either to maintain the same style and
career or to adapt and change the style from that of one's parents. In either
case, the messages are significant and need attention.

Personal Values

A sixth factor is personal values. Most missionaries and MKs are

directed by spiritual values which are reinforced by Scriptures emphasizing
service to others, self-sacrifice, using one's gifts, evangelizing the world,
and being faithful in the tasks they undertake. But these are not the only
values which can guide one's life. For example, security for oneself and
providing family security may be a strong value, especially if one has
grown up in a country in which there was little order and where chaos
reigned. Other people may prefer a life of one challenge after another; or a
person may value autonomy and independence, the opportunity to be one's
own boss, taking responsibility for one's own self. Providing joy through
entertainment may be valued, as may the making and giving away of
money. These are just a few of the values which guide a person and which,
when not followed, can become the source of much dissatisfaction,
discontent, and guilt.

Clear Vision and Goals

The most significant contributor to effectiveness and fulfillment in a

career is having a clear vision and goals to pursue. The Scripture says in
Proverbs 29:18, "Without a vision the people perish." This verse can also
be rendered, "Without a vision the people wander around aimlessly."
When a person has not identified his or her abilities, skills, interests,
personal style, messages from family of origin and personal values, it is
difficult to imagine working in a certain career. But when a person's
characteristics are identified and opportunities for work are clarified, when
a person can "see himself doing something and can't see himself doing
anything but that," then making career decisions becomes simpler, and the
person is more likely to be satisfied. Also it is more likely that the person
will experience greater longevity and effectiveness in the career. Research
indicates that approximately 80% of one's satisfaction and contentment
comes from having a clear vision and goals to pursue.

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Stage of Career Development

The eighth and final consideration is one's stage of career develop-

ment. People usually go through six different stages at which career deci-
sions are evaluated and made. Stage one is when a person goes from high
school to post-high-school opportunities. This is often a very difficult time
for MKs, especially if they have had little exposure to possible oppor-
tunities after high school. The second stage is moving into the workplace
after college or any other post-high-school education. Many students finish
their college education and then wonder how they are going to use the
information they learned or how to apply their major. Many find that their
major simply prepares them for additional schooling and that careers are
not available immediately upon graduation. This can be somewhat
upsetting.

Even if students do decide on a job or career after college, they may

find that they don't like the work after a few years. Between 28 and 33
years of age the majority of people re-evaluate and often change careers.
This occurs again between approximately 40 and 45, the mid-life transition
time. At this age people are often beginning to wonder whether they have
accomplished what they wanted to, they are becoming aware that they have
neither the energy nor the motivation they once did, and once more may
change careers.

Between 50 and 55 career decision making takes another turn. People

begin asking--now that the children are out of the home--what is most
meaningful and what they might leave to posterity. Bob Buford, in his
book Halftime, says that at this stage people may move from a desire for
success to a desire for significance. Finally, between 60 and 65 people
begin considering what they are going to do when they retire. Most people
do not wish to sit around on the beach watching the porpoises play all day
but want productive, useful, and meaningful lives.

Some people identify an additional stage, in the mid-70s, when people

make career changes as well. In her book The New Passages, Gail Sheehy
tells of people in their nineties who are productive and working effectively.
These career changes indicate that what one considers a viable career at age
18 will be very different from what is viable at age 30, 45, or 65. Keeping
this in mind can help people at any stage of life-- including missionaries

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and missionary kids-- make new decisions about careers, all of which can
continue to provide fulfillment and glorify God.

How to Choose a Career

The next consideration is the process of choosing a career. How does

one identify one's abilities, skills, interests, personality, family messages,
and values so as to develop a clear vision and goals for the future? For
each of the above issues or factors there are methods of assessment, some
of which are more effective than others. Traditional career assessments
and workshops will usually take into account only two or three of the
factors, and these are often subjectively-based measurements. For
example, a typical career assessment will involve taking an interest
inventory, a personality test, and if done by a Christian, may involve a
spiritual gifts test. These assessments are usually subjective in nature ("I
think I would like the work of an automobile mechanic," or "People have
told me I would be good as a singer.") The counselor will then spend
several sessions, often at great expense, working with the client to help
identify possible career choices. Let's look at the various factors and how
to access them.

Identifying Abilities

One can use a long or short method to identify abilities. The long

method, more subjective in nature, means reflecting on what has come
naturally, easily, and quickly over a lifetime of school and experience.
What were the easy courses in school that produced the best grades?
Which activities and skills came most easily and quickly; which ones were
noticed by others as gifts but seemed just normal and natural to you? For
example, did sports, music, working with tools, analyzing and theorizing,
performing experiments, drawing, painting, or designing come easily and
naturally to you? This can be a tedious exercise, but it can produce results
when each year of schooling and experience is analyzed. It demands an
excellent memory and input from others (teachers, parents, friends, peers,
co-workers) who are willing to help fill in the blanks.

Other sources of input are aptitude tests taken in high school and

college or standardized psychological tests emphasizing aptitudes. Unfor-
tunately many of these standardized tests are limited in scope, focusing

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primarily on what would be school-based aptitudes and abilities. Others
like the ASVAB (the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) are
limited to abilities which might be useful in the military and have some
transferability to civilian life.

The most objective and extensive ability assessments are based on the

Johnson-O'Connor battery, which has tasks or work samples covering
about twenty different areas of ability. Spinoffs of this test include the
AIMS battery and The Highlands Program, which is a comprehensive plan
including testing and follow-up workshops. Usually, four hours of testing
are required, followed by two hours of feedback and a report.

Of these three programs, The Highlands Program is the most compre-

hensive because Personality/Personal Style and Interests are measured. For
many people, simply going through the testing and feedback sessions is
sufficient to give needed direction, and this has been very effective for
MKs tested both in the U.S. and overseas.

Identifying Skills

There are few measures available for identifying skills; however, with

the help of others, people can identify what they do well. In order to be
thorough, it is important to identify not only the major skills (play the
piano, make speeches in front of people, learn a foreign language) but also
to identify the meta-skills which may not be recognized as easily (talk
easily with young children, organize games at summer camp, organize a
kitchen cupboard or household). Consultation with a trained career coun-
selor can also help.

In the author's opinion, the best format for providing comprehensive

information on skills are workshops designed for teens and adults by The
Highlands Program. These workshops provide a group setting in which a
person can identify skills and get feedback from others.

Identifying Interests

Using the long method, one can sit down with a sheet of paper and ask

oneself and one's parents and friends what has caught their attention over
the years and what seems to be interesting right now. Often an interest
from childhood remains an interest throughout life. Make a list of those
interests, and prioritize them with numbers from most to least interesting.
Ask others, "What did I like to do when I was younger, and what did I say I

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wanted to be?" Tests which access areas of interests include the Jackson
Vocational Interest Inventory

or, more commonly used by career

counselors, the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory. The Strong-
Campbell

has been used by Larry Burkett in his Career Pathways program.

The Highlands Program also helps identify interests through testing and
workshops.

Identifying Personality Factors

This is one of the most difficult areas to identify on one's own.

Others can describe one's personality, but often the information is either
not helpful or may trigger some defensiveness. Typical tests used to
identify personality issues related to work are the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator

(MBTI) or the Personal Profile System also known as the DISC.

Some counselors use the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI) or the 16 Personality Factor Test (16PF) as part of the
evaluation. Using one or more of the above tests in a workshop setting is
most effective.

Identifying Family Messages

Identifying family messages using the long method may be difficult

and requires a great deal of insight and input from other family members
such as siblings and parents. A frequently-used method is to engage in
individual or family therapy with a counselor who can help identify these
messages. Other methods include life history questionnaires and Life
Script Questionnaires which can be administered and interpreted by
professional counselors in a workshop or in one-on-one conversation.

Identifying Values

Identifying one's personal values is not an easy task. It requires a

great deal of insight and introspection. Another approach is to use books
such as Steven Covey's First Things First, or The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People

, or workshops based on his books. Edgar Schein's book

and seminars called Career Anchors also address the issue of values, and
The Highlands Program includes a helpful values sort exercise. A clear
understanding of one's values along with the other pieces of the career puz-
zle makes it possible to develop a clearer vision of what the future holds.

Identifying Stages of Career Development

Making Career Choices

141

At any stage of development, missionaries and others can profit from

a careful and comprehensive review of the eight factors described above.
Some missionaries have gone through The Highlands Program Ability
Battery to help them refine their job responsibilities and choices while on
the field. Other missionaries profit at crucial transition times as they move
from one placement to another or return to the sending country for various
reasons. Having some clarity regarding new options can be helpful after
having spent significant time away from the workplace in the sending
country. At times the tunnel vision developed from the missionary focus is
counterproductive to successfully developing a new career or finding a new
job.

For MKs an ideal time to address the issue of career choices is during

the junior or senior year of high school, either while on furlough or while
overseas. Testing should include a battery measuring at least abilities,
interests, and personality style. Options for colleges and college majors
can then be discussed and applications completed, along with requests for
scholarships and grants. Not all high school students are college material,
but an ability battery like that offered by The Highlands Program can be
most helpful in providing direction for a vocational/technical school, a
specialty school, or choices in the military.

Current statistics indicate that 50% of college students take seven

years to finish college rather than the traditional four years, and 44% of
incoming college freshmen never get a degree. Many of these young people
do not know who they are or what they want. There is no clear vision, so
they transfer colleges and change majors several times. Given these
statistics and considering the extremely high cost of college education, it is
clear that good assessment and direction before graduating from high
school could provide significant savings to parents of MKs, who usually
have limited funds. The lifelong fulfillment and effectiveness which could
result from a thoughtful process would be the greatest gift of all.

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16.

Career Developments:
Woodstock Class of 1968

Steve Van Rooy

My earliest memories are of traveling back into the hills where my

parents worked, in India close to the border of Tibet. After we got off the
train, we walked for eight to ten days to reach our home. I didn't realize
until many years later that this was, even in India, rather unusual.

In the mid-fifties, there was trouble in China and in Tibet, and it

caused the whole border area to become sensitive. So the Indian govern-
ment asked all missionaries who were back up in those areas to move out.
My parents moved to a little town in the hills of north India called
Mussoorie, where Woodstock School is located. I attended eleven out of
twelve grades at that school.

I have very fond memories of Woodstock School. I especially

remember the spectacular natural beauty of the setting in which it was
located. When you reach the top of the first range of mountains in the
Himalayas at 7,000 feet, you have a fantastic 180-degree panoramic view
of the Himalayas in front of you. It is simply a gorgeous setting for a
school.

I graduated from high school at Woodstock in 1968, and I think that I

reflect the feelings of my classmates when I say that our experience there
gave us much more than an education. I believe we received a rich
heritage, for which we will always be grateful.

In June of 1988, my class held a reunion at Woodstock for the

twentieth anniversary of our graduation from high school. We sent invita-
tions to over a hundred people who had been in our class at some point
during our twelve years. Our graduating class was fairly small--only
forty--but it included twenty-nine of us who had started in first grade
together. Twenty-two of us who graduated together came to the reunion;
four who had left in either tenth or eleventh grade also came back, for a
total of twenty-six. With wives and kids, there were over eighty people.

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The reunion was ten days long with a core of five days. Those who

had planned to come just for the core of five days in the middle ended up
staying for several days after. We had a wonderful time! I brought my
family, since we live here in Kenya and it's just a little hop across the
Indian Ocean from here. My wife would tell you that she felt warmly
accepted and included. In fact, even the spouses who were afraid they
would feel "out of it" just loved it and were very glad they came.

The coordinators of this ICMK conference thought it might be useful

and instructive to see what sort of vocations and careers our class had
twenty years after graduation. I will report that information, but first I
would like to make several other comments.

First of all, we had a guidance counselor at the school, but his job was

mostly helping us choose a university or college. Out of forty graduates,
thirty-nine of us went on to some form of higher education. One woman
took a two-year course to become a licensed practical nurse; three went to
what are considered Ivy League colleges--Harvard, Yale, and Vassar.

Second, about the types of occupations: I have heard that a high

percentage of missionary kids go into a service-related occupation, such as
doctor, dentist, counselor, missionary, pastor, or teacher--someone who
has a lot of professional interactions with other people. This description
seems to be true of our class.

Third, you also need to realize that when my class was at Woodstock

in the '50s and '60s, India was an extremely poor country, not what it is
today. Since then there has been an economic revolution in India. In those
days, India could not feed itself, and was considered an under-developed
country. Today, even though there are some major problems in the
subcontinent of India, it should no longer be described as an under-
developed country. There is a large and growing middle class.

As we were growing up, we were very aware of the poverty all around

us. Even though our parents' salaries were nothing terrific when they were
compared with the local scale, they looked pretty good. I didn't realize
how poor we were until I started college and received just about every grant
available because my parents fell below poverty level income!

I have noticed two trends among my classmates. There were some

who did, in fact, feel financially deprived. Their vocations seem to indicate

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that they were determined to make up for it, and they did. However, most
did not feel deprived. Most seemed to have had a rather good sense of
balance economically, and generally approached life in a non-materialistic
way. However, all of my classmates, regardless of whether or not they felt
deprived as children, seem to be very frugal today. Whenever I'm traveling
around and have the opportunity, I stop in and visit some of the men, some
of whom are very wealthy today. We usually go out to eat Indian food.
I've noticed that most of them, particularly those who are now wealthy,
meticulously go through the bill to be sure they weren't charged for
something they didn't order, and they seldom give a tip which is more than
ten percent!

It's also interesting to note what vocations people in my class seemed

to avoid. There are very few in government service; I think there is only
one person in Alaska working for the state in some aspect of social service.
And even though the school had a strong emphasis on music, art, and
drama, I know only one classmate who is in this field, who I will describe
later. As I look at the classes two or three years before and after mine, I
don't know of a single person who has a career in music, drama, or art.
Also, there is nobody that I know of who is in an occupation that would be
considered menial labor. My wife observed that most of these adult MKs
seem to have occupations which require a fairly high degree of education.

My last general comment is that there has been very little studty done

in career patterns of missionary kids. After I agreed to give this presen-
tation, several friends helped me search for research. They only found one
paper available in the United States on this topic, and it was dated 1969.

Let's look at some general categories of occupations from this one

class of forty people. The largest group are missionaries today, since nine
are currently missionaries. In addition to the nine, there are two who were
missionaries for a while but who have moved on to other vocations, and
one who is ready to return to missionary activity again in a different
capacity. This means that approximately twenty-five percent of the class is
in some kind of full-time missionary or ministerial work.

The next largest category is teachers. There are four in that category,

including one who is a university professor. Four others are in the area of
forestry or wildlife conservation. Another four own their own businesses,

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ranging from auto repairs to construction. Two are in the medical field,
one of whom is a doctor. (Incidentally, three others are married to
doctors!) Two are in a mechanical or technical field, such as jet aircraft
mechanic. Two are lawyers. A number are homemakers, and some are in
other occupations. If you add all this up, it doesn't quite total forty, but
that is all the information I have.

If you look at the highest level of education attained by these forty

people who graduated in 1968, ten went on for master's degrees; two have
Ph.D.s; and one is an M.D. This adds up to approximately thirty-three
percent with graduate or advanced degrees.

Financially, two are very wealthy (meaning they are millionaires); two

others married people who became very wealthy through businesses of
their own; and one married a woman who had a considerable amount of
family money. This means that approximately twelve percent would be
considered wealthy. I believe that only one percent of the general
population of the U.S. would be in this category. I doubt that this would be
typical of all MK school graduates, but it was the case for Woodstock,
Class of 1968.

I would like to give you glimpses of two rather unique individuals

who have equally unique careers. One was the son of Australian mis-
sionaries. He had a sharp wit and an extremely sharp tongue to match.
Four different people in our class said, "If he comes, I won't." He came,
and they didn't! He spoke three different Indian dialects fluently, and after
college he joined UNICEF and worked in India for approximately ten
years. The thing that probably undid him was his battle against waste and
corruption. Finally he left and started his own relief and development
agency, which today has 200 employees and an annual budget of
approximately six million dollars.

The second person I'll describe started at Harvard, and after one and a

half years he said, "What am I here for? I quit!" He returned to India, and
for five years he taught in a rural school. On weekends and sometimes
even during the week, his chief form of entertainment was to go to the local
cinema and watch all the Hindi flicks. After five years, he had the pattern
down pretty well--if you've watched many Indian movies, you know
they're all very similar. He saw a notice in the newspaper of an audition
for the Indian Institute of Film and Television. He thought, "Well, that's a

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likely career for me," so he signed up for the audition in New Delhi. The
Institute is very selective, and when he showed up, there were 800 people
applying for only two slots. All the other applicants were dressed up as
though they already were film stars, but he said, "Well, as long as I'm here
I'll go through with the thing." When he went to the audition, people there
told him he was in the wrong place. He said, "No, I'm prepared to give
this in Hindi. Really, it's a mother tongue for me." So, they let him give
his little presentation.

They laughed so hard that he thought he blew it, because he thought

they were laughing at him. Then later he was amazed to receive a letter in
the mail notifying him that he was one of the two accepted by the Indian
Film and Television Institute. He finished their three-year course and went
on to act in Indian films. He now does fifteen to twenty films a year.

This fellow also has a very sharp brain--he was second in our

class--and his particular field of interest is sports, particularly cricket.
He's an expert on cricket; there's nothing you can ask him about cricket
that he doesn't know. He now has a column in the magazine in India which
would be comparable to Sports Illustrated, and he's becoming quite well
known as a sports writer. Someone who currently has kids at Woodstock
mentioned to me that there was a New York Times article about him earlier
this year.

So there you have it: one class, twenty years later.

Comment from host Jim Lauer:

MKs have dreamed up more unique

job opportunities than you can imagine. My favorite story is about the one
who decided he liked scuba diving so much he figured out a way to make
money with it. He ended up in the area around Dallas, Texas, retrieving
golf balls from the ponds in golf courses. He made about twelve to fifteen
thousand dollars every summer doing that! We all laughed about it, but he
was doing great.

Based on a presentation at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

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17.

A TCP String of Five Pearls

William D. Taylor

The twenty-five of us sat in a circle, each holding his own "memory

bag." It was a winter day in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the borrowed
school room was chilly, but our warm group simply didn't feel the cold.
We were all third-culture people (TCPs). Most were missionary kids. We
had lived a significant portion of our lives away from our "passport
culture" in the culture of our parents' missionary service. But we truly
belonged to neither of these two cultures in the full sense of the word. That
made us TCPs. Our ages ranged from 13 to 65. We had lived in many
countries--Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Zaire, Ghana, Costa
Rica, Guatemala, Brazil, or Lebanon, with our parents having served the
spectrum of mission agencies. Yet we were bonded. We were with our
tribe. We belonged to each other and clicked with each other. In the words
of one young adult who explained to her parents why she chose the
MK/TCP conference over another prized event, "Mom and Dad, these are
my people."

However, it was the memory bags that riveted our attention. We all

held bags containing tangible proofs of our memories. We roared with
laughter at some of the artifacts. We sat in holy silence as others spoke
from the depths of their heart. We wept openly with those who shared their
pain. It was a singular, transcendental experience.

My own bag contained items precious to me: a faded black-and-white

picture of my first home in Turrialba, Costa Rica. My sister Grace and I
first played in that weather-beaten wood frame home. Just one meter to the
left stood the old building housing the church into whose members my
parents poured out their first terms in the early 'forties. My bag also
revealed my first passport. With visas, dozens of legal stamps and what
seemed to be hundreds of illegible signatures, it still lives to me as an
historic document tracing my travels through Central America. From my
bag, I pulled out the letters written home from boarding school. I read one
of my first lines, "Dear Mom and Dad. How are you?" and then I paused
to ask my friends what followed, and in unison they chorused, "I am fine!"
Most of them had written similar letters; mine was just a generation older.

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But what was I doing "down under" with this choice collection of

Kiwi TCPs? Well, it really started at the 1989 Third International Confer-
ence on Missionary Kids in Kenya. That conference radically impacted me,
for it was late in life that I truly began to reflect on and evaluate my own
MK experience. When a New Zealand ICMK participant invited me to
visit their TCPs, my first reaction had been, "What do I have to talk about
to other MKs?" But in time I sensed God uncovering memories, nudging
me to speak from the fabric of my own personal and childhood family MK
life, then as a parent of three MKs, and now as an observer of hundreds of
TCPs from both non-Western and Western missionary families. Five key
pearls emerged gradually as I interacted with TCPs. All five are central to
our rich and complex identity: Memories, Transitions, Decisions,
Processings, and Eternals. Let me slip them onto a golden chain of
personal reality.

Memories

I hope most TCP memories are positive. But the reality is that they

range from the wonderful to the extremely painful, with the whole range in
between. All of us TCPs have had rough patches. Some of our clan,
including myself, have glorified our MK experience, and I've had to work
through my rosy-colored lenses. Our Christchurch seminar brought a vet-
eran of the original China Inland Mission's Chefoo School in China. She
along with her five siblings had spent three years in a concentration camp
during World War II and was separated a total of five years from her par-
ents. Left with fragmented memories of her mother, and brutal memories
of those China years, this dear woman of God sat with us primarily in
silence. I knew some of her story and it definitely was not pleasant.

At our seminar I asked the participants to share their own prime

memories. We laughed, listened quietly, and wept. One was a teenage girl
who had recently studied at the Chefoo School in Malaysia, and what a
world of difference between the two stories, the two schools, the two
periods of history! What of the TCPs whose bruised memories have been
suppressed, who choose to forget? We had one with us, a young adult who
openly admitted he really had not wanted to come to the seminar because,
"When I left Papua New Guinea I decided I would try to forget all those
years." Yet he was there, and even brought his own memory bag! What a
painful price is paid when memories are blocked.

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Memories. Before I began reflecting seriously on my own MK

experience, my recollections were warm and positive. But then as slow,
honest analysis began, it was clear that my probing had brought up bruises
painful to remember. Gradually the healing of memories has begun its
restorative work. So here I was, at the tender age of fifty-one, attempting
to process my life.

A word of encouragement to TCP families. Be sure you are a talking

family with an ambiance where all members are given space to share deep
longing, memories, joys, bruises, and pains.

A word to mission agencies: provide optional opportunities for

educating MKs, ensure the circulation of helpful articles and books,
provide seminars focusing on family welfare, and dignify the wisdom of
professional counseling or pastoring where needed.

Transitions

The entire human race experiences transitions. For most TCPs, the

bold relief transitions mainly refer to that heavy word "departure": from
home culture to mission field culture; from home to boarding school; then
departure from mission field culture to "passport culture." Few remember
the departure from their original home culture because they left at a tender
age. Many were born on the foreign field. Not all of us went to boarding
school. While I did attend one for only two years, my own children studied
in an international Austrian school in Guatemala City. Their story is
different. It was amazing to see the parallel boarding school stories of
almost all of our TCP group. Some of them had traveled to boarding
school at the age of six or seven. These memories for some were vague,
for others still vivid.

Praise God for the more humane and biblical attitudes of missions

today which rest the final schooling decision in the parents' court. MK
boarding schools are no longer our only formal education choices. Home
schooling, correspondence, tutoring, national, public, and private schools
all have their place, depending on the location and circumstances of
missionary service. When my own children became school age, we had a
variety of options right in Guatemala City, even though my old boarding
school was still operating in the same distant, mountain city.

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When is a transition healthy? When both parents are united on the

transitions; when they have adequately discussed the decisions with their
children, thus preparing them for the future; when both Mom and Dad take
their children to boarding school, write them at least weekly and pay the
price to visit during the school year.

Again the Kiwi seminar revealed the gigantic steps forward that

missions have made in allocating resources and establishing healthy
policies regarding family and MK schooling. We rejoice in these changes.
But now, understanding the broader picture, I hurt more than ever for some
of my Moody Bible Institute classmates who were shipped off by agency
orders to mission boarding schools and then to mission hostels in the home
country. From there, many went to approved Christian colleges or Bible
schools and then some returned to their safe world of the mission field. A
series of secure bubbles protected them from the real world, but left them
dysfunctional-- perpetrators of the unhealthy cycle.

The word of encouragement to TCP families: Transitions can be

stepping stones to maturity and new stages of life, or they can be fraught
with uncertainty and laced with pain. The key is the family culture and the
agency support system which by a pastoral counseling policy strengthens
family units. One word became clear from our teenage TCPs--when the
time comes for them to return to their home culture to finish secondary
school or to start higher education, the best transitions find parents joyfully
returning with their kids and living together as an integrated family for a
couple of years or more.

Decisions

We all make a myriad of decisions in our lives, but some TCP

decisions stand out as the critical, cross-road ones. We all live with
decisions over which we had no control. TCPs had no choice to be born or
grow up on the mission fields of our world. They were there because of
decisions parents made in the context of obedience and service. Parents
made the decisions regarding our schooling and our major transitions. As
dependent children we live with the results of those choices. If some
results soured in the process, then each TCP has some further decisions.
We can make deliberate choices to hold something against Mom and Dad,
or perhaps the agency; or we can release them in forgiveness, assuming
that they did what they truly thought was right. Many times the

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third-culture person's anger is directed against God. This requires a
similar, yet different, kind of release and acceptance of the Lord's healing
grace.

Our Christchurch group grappled with various decisions. They saw

the decision to come to faith in Christ as crucial, along with the later
maturing decisions that came to grips with the sovereignty of Christ in their
lives. Some spoke of decisions to rebel, to break the tightened noose of
parental and evangelical subculture that had foisted on them such a
negative perspective of culture and the world. I wonder if some of our MK
dropouts are a product of this stifling, narrow world, and if so I wonder
how to build bridges to them.

I asked our group how many of them had MK friends who had

abandoned the faith. Almost all knew someone personally. As we tried to
understand what had happened, two things became clear. First, while
membership in a healthy missionary family provides a good atmosphere for
positive spiritual decisions, each person is an individual with the right to
decide for or against Christ. Second, we had to recognize the painful
reality of many dysfunctional missionary families.

Another issue is career choice. A significant percentage of MKs

become missionaries and I hope their decision-making process is a healthy
one. Unfortunately, there is an unbiblical concept of vocation which posits
Christian ministry as the prime career that God blesses above all others.
This violates the Christian theology of work and vocation, and dumps a
terrible load of guilt on TCPs who choose differently. We missionary
parents should delight when our children choose any career in the will of
God. All honorable vocations receive God's full blessing; the crucial issue
is to experience the Lordship of Christ in every sphere, including the
secular marketplace.

Studies show that many MKs enter the helping professions, probably

because they grew up in a world where their parents were dedicated to a
particular kind of helping. This is great news. Another good number enter
other arenas of international work--foreign service, overseas teaching, or
international business. Let us encourage a flood of Godly tentmakers to go
into our world. Most TCPs will choose an uncomplicated lifestyle,
recognizing the beauty and blessing of simplicity.

Processings

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The plural form indicates ongoing stages throughout life as we TCPs

process our memories, our transitions, and our decisions. Consciously or
not, we all must attempt to come to terms with our past. A young girl may
express her pain in quiet tears in the night privacy of her pillow; a young
boy may turn aggressive as his way to deal with his pain. A teenager
returning to his or her "passport culture" which is now very foreign
processes his hurt and anger in various ways, some of which are not
healthy. Most will make the transition with some difficult adjustments, but
will level out in time without getting into destructive behavior. Friendly
peers can aid the transition to the home scene and help MKs process the
change. But many times people reach adulthood before they are ready to
face the past and work through their bruised memories into healing.

I recall a woman in her forties who had sat quietly in the back during

all the sessions at another TCP camp, speaking little and reacting even less.
After camp was over she asked for some private time, and as she started
talking, she began to weep. Having grown up in Papua New Guinea, she
returned home as a teenager, and it had been rough all the way. She had
blocked off all of her memories and refused to process her past. When she
heard about the TCP gathering, she dismissed going. "It's surely not for
me. I'm a grown woman with two sons, working on a busy farm. There's
no time for that foolishness." But God had irresistibly and lovingly wooed
her to the camp. The memory bags had cracked her own memory bank.
Now she longed to wade through her attic where she knew some of her
prizes lay hidden. For the first time in her life, she was processing her past
and God was bringing restoration and healing.

I wonder how many in our TCP world have never dealt deeply with

their memories, transitions and decisions? Surely the result of that
unprocessed mixture of pain and joy cannot be healthy. What does it take
to trigger a proper processing? Does it happen by itself, with or without
the Holy Spirit? What kind of warm support groups exist to encourage this
processing? What can parents of MKs do for their children when they have
not processed their own pain? Can mission agencies offer sensitive aid?
Some do, but many people simply live with unprocessed pain.

But what joy to see an adult come to terms with the memories. The

processing may involve profound pain for TCP siblings, parents, and other
family. Yet the results of working through these issues can only be good,
even for MKs who have departed from biblical values and a personal

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relationship with Jesus Christ. Perhaps as resolution comes, there will be
family reconciliation and at the right time, spiritual reconciliation.

Eternals

We Christians are bound and driven by eternals rooted in the reality

of the unique God whom we adore and worship. My New Zealand TCP
talks were based on I Peter. We discovered fascinating truths in that short
letter as we read it from the perspective of Peter as a global nomad, a man
who had experienced a series of major transitions stemming from radical
commitment and obedience to God. As Peter wrote this letter, he pro-
cessed for himself and his readers the guiding truths from God. He wrote
to scattered believers whose faithfulness to their Lord resulted in forced
moves into new geography and culture. They had to persevere and over-
come. Yet, they also were chosen, selected by God and loved intensely.

And so it is for the modern TCP: scattered, strangers, yet loved by the

sovereign God of history. Missionary children move cross-culturally
because their parents are convinced that without Christ there is no hope for
eternal salvation. The driving force for missions surges from the heart of a
loving and seeking God, who has provided the solution for human rebellion
in the person and work of Christ. That's what must compel us!

TCPs, like everyone else, must come to grips with eternal issues.

Some have rejected the Christian faith. For others of our kind, the jury is
still out. I often pray: "Loving God, woo them back to you. Bring healing
to heart, mind, body, and spirit." As TCPs mature and move through
adulthood they continue to grapple with the eternal realities just as Peter
did in his letter. When his letter is read through this filter, it literally leaps
out in new application to our subculture. How rich is the mystery of God!
How wonderful then to see Christ as the ultimate TCP, with his own set of
memories, transitions, processings, decisions, and eternals. Without the
reality of the eternals, life has no meaning to us.

A Word to Agencies and Supporting Churches

Individuals, families, agencies and supporting churches all play

critical roles in the TCP pilgrimage. I have focused primarily on the TCP,
with tangential reference to family functionality and agency support

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systems. What more can agencies and home churches do for their mission-
ary families? Here are a few simple ideas.

First, recognize the hurts and brokenness of the contemporary family,

a condition that affects missionaries as well. Neither idealize nor deprecate
the missionary family. There are no perfect families, and we must do
everything possible to bring maximum health to our cross-cultural families.
Second, home churches and agencies can assure that families in pain have
confidential counseling resources available. While staff counselors may
serve some missionaries, many families prefer an objective professional
who is not beholden to the agency or church. Third, agencies and churches
can encourage the development of field or home-based support groups that
will allow parents in pain to find peer assistance. I have seen this at work
in Australia, and it has met a critical need. Fourth, agencies and home
churches must encourage the development of TCP-led support networks.
Mu-Kappa and its Aussie and Kiwi counterparts are great resources, but
much more can be done.

Finally

In 1988 in London, I stood before the tomb of David Livingstone.

His heart was buried in Africa and the rest was embalmed for state burial
in Westminster Abbey. His son, however, had left England, emigrated to
America, and wrote his father a tragic letter in which he repudiated his
father's faith and reported changing his name in order to sever the linkage
with his father. Soon I will travel to Jos, Nigeria, and will visit a unique
cemetery where 55 people are buried: 28 adults and 27 children of mis-
sionaries to Africa. Under a beautiful blue African sky, shaded by the
giant mango tree, I will meditate, weep, and pray with gratitude to God for
the eternals and for these servants who paid such a high price.

A TCP's string of five pearls: memories, transitions, decisions,

processings, and eternals. Not always perfect or unmarred. They are often
shaped into beauty and forged in pain, but always tenderly held in the hand
of a loving Father.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, De-

cember 1994.

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18.

Emotional and Behavioral Patterns
of Adult MKs

David L. Wickstrom

One of the rich aspects of my life is the opportunity to talk with other

adult MKs and to share our experiences. It is also part of the work I do as
a psychologist, as I consult with other mental health professionals and
work in my private practice. It is out of these experiences that I share some
observations. There are many commonalities in the MK experience, and
several emotional and behavioral patterns can be seen.

One common observation is that "coming back home" to what others

call "home" is actually leaving home. You leave a culture with which you
are familiar, and when you go to your "home" country, it may be going for
the first time, and you don't feel at home. You don't fit in with the cultural
values or the expected behavior. MKs often wonder, "Why do people act
this weird way?" And of course, those in the "home" country are asking,
"Why does this MK act so strange?" There are often very different
perceptions of appropriate behavior, and an MK may feel and be labelled
as "different." Using the United States as a frame of reference, some of the
behavioral and emotional patterns may appear to be "abnormal." But
when we look at those patterns in terms of another culture, they may not be
abnormal at all.

It is important to remember that, while some of these patterns may be

troublesome, it does not mean that they are "bad" or "faulty" or "sick." By
describing them in terms of the U.S. culture, our intent is to help adult
MKs adjust when they return to their parents' passport country, because
the majority of AMKs stay in their parents' culture as adults. This is not to
say that the "home" culture is better, but adjustment is necessary if one is
to have a sense of survival.

When asked, "What is the most troublesome emotion you deal with?"

most adult MKs say, "Loneliness and insecurity because of all the
separations; the moving around; difficulty feeling settled." Others
respond, "Low self-esteem, not feeling like one fits in, not having anything
to contribute, a sense of failure." Still others struggle with hate and

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resentment--hating the "home" culture and almost everything about it,
including bigotry. Another common response is a feeling of shame because
of being different. For others there is profound sadness from repeated
losses, and often a sense of being an alien far from a secure group.
Frequently there is a lack of self-confidence and clear identity--a sense of
asking, "Who am I, where do I belong, what am I going to do?" Of course,
these feelings often lead to discouragement.

For many adult MKs, communication is an issue. There are times

when the best word for a situation is from some tongue other than English.
Still other MKs struggle with fears--fear of the unknown, fear of things
like kidnapping, fear of not knowing the rules. Many adult MKs want to
be "normal" but feel that everybody else thinks they are different. Let's
explore some other emotions and patterns of behavior which MKs com-
monly exhibit.

Guilt

Missionary kids can feel guilty about many different things: they can

feel guilty for going back to the States and living in a country where they
have lots of money when they know that the people back home--real
home--don't have much of anything. Many kids have a difficult time
when they start earning money. Some feel guilty for feeling resentful or
sad, or for leaving their home country. Some feel guilty for having resent-
ment or anger against their parents. They may feel guilty that they are not
serving more, or not going back to the mission field. Or, they may feel
guilty for being overseas and not doing something back in the States when
they could serve the mission community effectively in the U.S.

Surprisingly, many MKs feel guilty because they don't mind being

away from their parents. It's true! People are told that parent-child
relationships are very important and that we should have strong, close
family ties. When MKs don't have them they often feel guilty. But if they
do feel close family ties and don't detach themselves from their feelings of
closeness, then when separations occur they are left with sadness. So they
are caught between guilt, sadness, and anger.

Adult MKs often struggle with guilt and shame, though they may not

have been aware of these feelings as children. At its core these feelings are

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often based on the perception of being different. "I don't really fit in;
therefore there must be something wrong with me." They have different
values, and different so often feels bad. To children, "different" almost
always means "bad," and the result is a struggle with guilt and shame,
which may be expressed in many different arenas in life.

Common Emotional and Behavioral Patterns of MKs

There are many other emotional patterns and characteristics common

to missionary kids. Some are described below; the description may or may
not fit your personal experience.

Detached Aloof Pattern

One frequently observed set of behaviors in adult MKs is the detached

aloof pattern. They have been hurt many, many times and decide they are
never going to get hurt again. The picture that is often presented is "I am
independent; I don't need anybody; everybody can rely on me, but I don't
need to rely on anybody else." The person may be very friendly and easy to
talk with, but even after spending considerable time, you feel you don't
really know who they are.

Many adult MKs have this detached aloof pattern, but it is even more

common in adult MKs who attended boarding school as children and
decided at some point, "I'm never going to get hurt again; I will be separate
from other people and nobody is going to touch me. I am a rock that can
handle anything." And many of them do. They are successful, strong, and
very good at what they do, but they are also detached and aloof--
untouchable. On the surface they may appear very stable; below the
surface the reality may be that they don't let themselves feel.

Non-Assertive Pattern

Another common pattern is being is non-assertive. Assertiveness is

often highly valued in the United States, and many MKs are uncomfortable
with it. It smacks of self-centeredness, and it is often frowned on in church
circles. After all, aren't we to be like Christ--the servant of all? However,
Jesus himself said that if you ask you will receive, if you seek and keep on
seeking you will find, and if you knock it will be opened. In effect, Christ

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says, "Come to me and tell me what you need, and I'll meet your need."
And the psalmist declares that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, he will
"give us the desires of our hearts."

Healthy assertiveness does not conflict with the Christian values of

letting other people have the best, or of giving to others rather than expec-
ting from them. Those are good biblical values. But there is an unhealthy
kind of non-assertiveness that says, "I shouldn't need anything. I should
not ask for anything." Many adult MKs have an aversion to raising sup-
port, especially if the gifts of other people kept their family on the mission
field. They want to be able to support themselves and not have to ask for
anything. To ask smacks of dependency.

The non-assertive style of not asking for what one wants is often

carried over into interpersonal relationships. Husbands and wives who are
adult MKs may have a very difficult time saying, "I need this from you,"
because to them it feels selfish. "I should be giving, giving, giving. That's
the missionary way, and I shouldn't want anything in return."

The problem with the non-assertive pattern is that it often leads to

passive-aggressive behavior. When your needs aren't met, anger is a
natural response, expressed by saying, "That person wouldn't want to give
to me anyway; they're mean and selfish." Then the angry, non-assertive
MK may treat the other in passive but biting ways, or withhold something
because that person hasn't given to the MK. But the MK may not have
received anything because he or she didn't ask! What a trap!

Adult MKs may have learned that attitude as they watched their par-

ents give without asking in return. They may have decided not to admit to
any needs, let alone ask to have needs met. This can be translated into a
prideful and haughty spirit, feeling noble because one is giving, not needy.
But God has put within us needs for relationship, needs to have others
reach out to us and give to us. That's why the body of Christ is necessary,
to care for one another!

Emotionally Repressed Style

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The emotionally repressed style is often seen in MKs and others who

have experienced severe trauma such as sexual abuse, emotional abuse,
physical abuse, wars, military coups, fighting, or being evacuated quickly
after witnessing atrocities. It can also occur in people who have endured
frequent and lengthy separations from loved ones. Emotional repression
means that feelings are kept under very tight control and one is not allowed
to feel. It is a defense against emotional pain. "Don't feel, and you won't
hurt."

At a reunion of one missionary school, these patterns were being

discussed along with the results of research regarding adult MKs. Some of
the MKs at the reunion became incensed when they were told that they
probably had experienced or currently experienced anger, sadness, or grief.
They said, "Well, we don't feel that! MKs don't feel those kinds of things.
If they do, then they are wimps and just need to trust the Lord more and
quit crying over things that happened when they were kids." But MKs do
feel those things, and often they don't think they are allowed to have those
emotions, so they shut them down. It is a defensive reaction to the feeling
of overwhelming pain.

I (the author) can remember deciding as a third grader that I would

never cry again when I left my parents to go to boarding school. And I
didn't. After that it was very difficult for me to cry. The next time I can
remember crying when I saw my parents leave was after I was married. My
folks were going back to Africa, and I was afraid that I was seeing them for
the last time. I didn't know why I felt that way. Then my father started to
cry. He was leaving two of his three sons in the States while he went
overseas. When he started to cry, that gave me permission to cry, but it
was still very difficult for me. I quickly shut the feelings down and got
control of myself. "I shouldn't feel those kinds of feelings." That often
happens when people who do not allow themselves to feel deeply their
painful or negative feelings.

The Special Person or Entitlement Syndrome

The special person syndrome means feeling that we are different,

special, or even untouchable because we or our parents are in the Lord's
work. When missionaries are on furlough, most congregations want the
missionaries to sit in front. Being a missionary is often considered the top

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echelon of Christianity. Often MKs are placed in front of people. When I
was in sixth grade I was asked to go from school to school showing slides
and talking to people about Africa. That's heady stuff for a little sixth
grader! Of course, there were questions like, "Did you see Tarzan? Did
those pythons ever hug you really tight?" The questions became tiresome,
but the attention contributed to a feeling of being special.

Missionary kids tell about other variations of the special person

syndrome. For example, one MK told of being outraged that a teacher
questioned something he said in class. The response internally, though not
expressed outwardly was, "Well, of course I'm right. Who are you even to
question me? I'm a missionary kid." The implication was, "I know the
answer to that question and can answer it better than you can. I have more
experience because I have traveled overseas." A kind of defensiveness can
arise when the MK is confronted or criticized. It may be very subtle, but
it's often there. It may need to be acknowledged by many adult missionary
kids.

Get Close Quickly and Detach Just as Quickly

Recently while eating dinner at a conference an MK friend said, "I can

handle a close relationship for a year, and then I'm gone. That's it." She
was talking specifically about dating. A lot of heads were nodding at that
particular table.

Many MKs are adept at forming relationships quickly. They've gone

from place to place to place, and in order to survive, they've had to form
relationships. They've learned a lot about other cultures, and they know
how to relate to different kinds of people. In most of the world, there is a
much stronger emphasis on personal relationships and spending time with
others, compared to the United States where we value individuality, doing
your own thing, and productivity. Many missionary kids can establish
relationships quickly, and they are able to speak on a great variety of
subjects. They are trained to give, and to listen to other people. As good
missionaries, they learned to draw other people out. Naturally, other
people are often attracted to missionary kids.

But when they get too close, the MK says (inside), "Oh no. This is

scary. I've got to back off!" And the other person wonders, "What

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happened here? I thought we were good friends." The MK also asks,
"What happened here? I thought we were good friends." They don't
understand their own discomfort with forming a close and lasting relation-
ship. They may draw the other person out, and they may have the skills to
develop a relationship very quickly. But because of frequent moves, they
have never learned to form a close, deep, intimate personal relationships
over the long haul. Obviously, this pattern can cause problems when it
shows up in marriage relationships.

The Rescuer Syndrome

Missionary kids often exhibit what may be called the "rescuer

syndrome." And no wonder! In many evangelical churches characterized
by zeal for missions, the song "Rescue the Perishing" was often sung with
great gusto. Missionaries are often very good at identifying others' needs
and responding "Let me help you." That's not a bad outlook! After all,
Christ came to people who were hurting and constantly reached out to
those who came to him.

Missionary parents frequently provide the "rescuer" model for their

kids. Some missionaries are untiring in their efforts on behalf of the people
to whom they were sent, and rarely turn away anyone who comes to them,
no matter what time of day or night. At one time a popular missionary
motto was "Burn out for Christ," and many have done just that. Many
MKs have developed the same values by imitating their parents.

The rescuer syndrome can produce a lot of good, but it can also be

bad when taken to the extreme. We may feel overly responsible, and if
anyone is hurting we may feel the need to help. If we can't help, we may
feel guilty or resentful. If the hurting person doesn't want help but says,
"Get out of here!" the MK may feel rejected and end up being the victim.

People can be described as falling into one of three categories:

rescuer, persecutor, and victim. Missionary kids often get caught in this
triangle because they are adept at picking out victims or people who are
hurting. A victim can be anybody who is having a problem or difficulty in
life, and MKs want to help.

A persecutor is any person or circumstance that puts another person

into a victim position. The adult missionary kid may be a rescuer who tries

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to help the victim. There are good rescuers and bad rescuers; there are
good bad victims; there are good and bad persecutors. Here are their
characteristics.

A good rescuer is asked to rescue; he doesn't necessarily ask to be a

rescuer, nor does he seek someone to rescue. A good rescuer--if he is
going to rescue--will find out whether the identified victim really wants
help. A second characteristic of a good rescuer is that he will not take
more than 50% of the responsibility

for helping the victim get out of the

victim position. A good rescuer is also usually thanked for the help they
give. A good victim is someone who does not contribute to their victim
position, who takes at least 50% of the responsibility for getting out of the
victim position, asks for help, and then thanks the one who helped. A good
persecutor can be any situation or person who inadvertently hurts someone,
thus victimizing that one.

A scenario might look like this: An MK knows someone who has a

drug problem. He or she goes to that person and says, "I know you've got
a problem here." What is the person's response going to be? Frequently it
is, "Not me! Who are you talking about? Get out of here!" What
happens? The MK, who is trying to be a rescuer, is looked at by the victim
as being a persecutor, especially when the victim says, in effect, "You are
only adding to my problem." And the victim may become very defensive
and angry.

But what happens if they let the MK help? If the MK offers various

ways of helping, and pretty soon the victim becomes clingy and dependent,
then the MK begins to feel responsible and stuck. If the victim takes an
overdose some day, the rescuer may end up saying, "I should have pre-
vented this. It's my fault!" And the MK becomes the one who is hurting--
in essence a victim; and the victim has become the persecutor.

Let's carry the scenario further. After overdosing, the victim ends up

in the hospital, and the MK goes to the hospital to visit. The victim, who
has come out of a coma, says, "Oh, I'm so glad you're here, but why
weren't you here earlier? You should have been able to keep me from
doing this!" Suddenly the MK feels like a victim again and says, "Oh, I'm
so sorry I wasn't there. I should have helped you. I feel so terrible." And
the victim then responds with, "Oh, I didn't mean to make you feel bad.

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I'm sorry." Thus the victim moves from persecutor position to a rescuer
position and now tries to help the MK victim!

What happens is a game of Round Robin with rescuers and victims

and persecutors changing positions, wondering how they got into this mess.
Well, a lot of it is because someone jumped in before finding out whether
the victim wanted help, a common issue for missionary kids. (It is also one
of the reasons why many MKs get into fields like psychology or nursing or
the service professions. They are very good at pointing out needs and
helping to meet them.)

The MK may burn out as a rescuer, perhaps by ignoring the model

Christ presented. Jesus helped people, but he rarely did so without their
seeking him or asking for help. When Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda
and saw a crippled man there he asked, "Do you want to be healed?" Here
is a man who has been crippled for many years. He's sitting beside the
pool, he can't seem to get in the pool for healing, and Christ has the
audacity to ask, "Do you want to be healed?" Christ was a good rescuer,
and he demonstrates a good rescue, knowing that there many people who
are really hurting but don't want to be helped.

These are some of the emotional and behavioral patterns seen in adult

MKs. But there are some other patterns as well which can be identified by
the following list of questions. Most MKs are well adjusted and
productive, but there are some patterns which, if identified and counter-
acted, can help MKs function even better.

Missionary Kids:

Do you judge yourself without mercy? Are you harder on yourself

than other people are?

Do you have difficulty trusting?

Do you have difficulty feeling? Do you experience depression or

numbness fairly frequently?

Do you take life extremely seriously? Do you have difficulty having

fun? Do you feel more fulfilled when you are accomplishing something, so
that having fun seems frivolous?

Do you have trouble with low self-esteem?

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Do you have difficulty with close, intimate relationships?

Do you have trouble handling a situation or problem when you are not

in control?

Do you have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility? That is, are

you more concerned about others than about yourself, even to the point of
neglect? Scripture says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There
needs to be a balance, because MKs can harm themselves by
demonstrating concern about other people, to their own neglect.

Do you have an excessive need for approval and affirmation from

others? Do you have difficulty accepting it when it is offered?

Are you extremely loyal, even when loyalty is undeserved?

Do you often feel guilty about things that are not your fault?

Are you afraid of people, especially authority figures, and do you have

extreme difficulty handling criticism?

Do you have trouble identifying your own needs and asking to have

those needs met? Do you tend to insist on peace at any cost, even though
the cost may be very high?

Did you marry someone because they had problems and that is what

drew you to them?

Are you terrified of abandonment? Do you hold onto a relationship at

any cost?

Do you have trouble experiencing God as loving, giving, trustworthy,

and forgiving?

Do you have difficulty with shades of gray, tending to see things as

black and white, either good or bad, right or wrong?

Do you have difficulty following projects from beginning to end?

Do you have difficulty feeling safe as an adult; do you struggle with

fear and anxiety?

Do you express hostility and anger in devious ways such as sarcasm,

criticism, back-biting, "helpful" comments, but lack awareness of your
anger?

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Perhaps these questions and your answers to them can be a spring-

board for understanding your own patterns and act as an impetus for
growth. If so, may that growth enable you to be more effective in living the
life that God has called you to live and in doing the job that God has called
you to do.

Based on a presentation at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

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19.
Bruising: When Things Go Wrong

David L. Wickstrom

About two years ago, my wife and I traveled to Africa. I was raised in

Nigeria and attended Kent Academy and Hillcrest High School. I had often
told my wife and family about being an MK and how it shaped me as a
person. My wife really couldn't understand what I was saying until she
visited Africa and learned more about what influenced me. Later we made
a list of things about me that would have made our relationship a lot easier
if she had known them fifteen years earlier! If you are puzzled about your
mate who is an MK, I recommend a visit to the place where he or she grew
up.

My experience as an MK was positive overall, and most MKs state

that their experience was positive, but then we will focus on the
difficulties--emotional and psychological bruising. Bruising takes place in
everybody's life, because we all have needs which are never perfectly met.
Missionary kids have no more difficulties than other people, but they have
specific areas of vulnerability unique to their experience. People in the
military, State Department, and international business community have
similar issues.

Why Are We Bruised?

First of all, we are all bruised because we are fallen creatures. God

created a world with no pain, where all needs were met. But sin came into
the world; the result is we are all fallen people. We all have imperfect
parents, and we all are imperfect ourselves. Neither we nor our parents
will always know what we need or be willing or able to give it. And when
we do receive from others, we often misinterpret what is given or the
motivations of the giver. Why? Because we all are fallen.

Second, we live in an imperfect world with societal breakdown all

around us--a world which is changing faster and faster all the time.
Bruising is one result of radical changes which are impossible for us to
handle adequately.

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Third, all of us have unique, individual personalities, and an

experience which is normal and easy for one child to handle can be
devastating to another. For example, you can look at one child and say, "I
wish you wouldn't to that," and the child breaks into tears; another child
says "OK"; and another child ignores you and goes on doing what he
wants. Each one is different and needs different treatment.

Comparison of Emotional Lives and Physical Bodies

One way of thinking about bruising is to compare our emotional lives

to our bodies. Physically we have ways to handle and recover from injury.
The same is true emotionally. The ways we find to handle emotional
injuries are called defenses, and they are extremely important in facing
pain. We develop them as young children, and they may or may not be
helpful to us later. For example, think of a six-year-old child whose
parents become missionaries. The child is removed from a familiar school
and taken to another country, where everything is new and scary. First the
child is placed in a national school near the parents--new people, new
faces, new studies. Then later the parents are transferred to another
location, so the child is in another national school. Then they are assigned
to a remote location where the parents do home schooling. In a few years,
the situation may change again.

What happens to the child through all these changes? All of us need

close interpersonal relationships. But every move brings separation from
friends, relatives, and acquaintances, and the resulting grief process is
ongoing. If a child is moved frequently and doesn't have enough chance to
grieve, he protects himself from the pain of leaving by developing
defenses. One defense is not to allow friendships to get very deep, or the
person may become very clingy, leading to potential problems with
intimacy. These problems may carry over into adult life, especially in
marriage. The fear of getting close or being abandoned may produce
behavior causing the loss people both fear and expect. These are examples
of defenses which aren't useful carried into adult life.

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Developmental Processes and Dealing with Pain

There are other ways in which people react to pain based on normal

developmental processes. For example, children think in black-and-white
terms and tend to view situations and themselves as either all good or all
bad. Also, children are very egocentric, thinking they cause things to
happen. These thought processes may not be helpful in adult life. For
example, if a parent gets angry or is neglectful, the child often thinks, "I'm
very bad." If is a child is sent to boarding school, consciously or
unconsciously he may think, "I must be bad, or there is something very
wrong with me. Otherwise Mom and Dad wouldn't have sent me away.
They must not have wanted me around." If people feel there is something
terribly wrong with them--perhaps based on childhood experiences--they
may develop one of the following styles:

1. They start blaming other people instead of taking responsibility

for their own pain and their own actions. Some missionary kids get
defensive and blame their parents or someone else, because that is their
way of dealing with the pain.

2. Others get involved in antisocial lifestyles, often out of anger or

out of the belief, "If I'm really no good, then I might as well act that way."
They may have trouble with drugs or with the law. Why? It was their way
of coping with some of their pain.

3. Another way of dealing with pain is through addictions. There are

empty spots in all our lives, and we often fill them with something other
than a relationship with God or other healthy things. When we do that
regularly, it can become an addiction. Overeating, sports, romantic
relationships, and workaholism are examples of things which may be used
to fill life if one is afraid that interpersonal needs are not going to be met.

Needs and Developmental Stages

Another way that bruising may occur is when needs specific to devel-

opmental stages are not met. This discussion is based on the theoretical
formulations of Erik Erikson who enumerated six developmental stages in
life. Each stage forms the foundation for the next one; like bricks, they
form a strong wall or a weak one.

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The first developmental stage is from birth to 18 months, when a child

develops what Erikson calls basic trust vs. basic mistrust. If children are
given a lot of care, feeding, warmth, love, and emotional support, they will
usually form a good basic sense of trust. If they are not fed adequately, not
supported emotionally, are neglected or even abused, basic mistrust of the
world and people develops.

In the course of normal life, there are times when children can be hurt

very badly. If they have developed a basic outlook of trust on life, they can
rebound and say, "I am sure things will get better." But if they have
developed an attitude of basic mistrust, later on when things get difficult
they may say, "I knew it. Life is always going to give me a raw deal. It
always has. I can't handle it." So, some people have an attitude of "just
getting through and surviving" because they don't really believe that they
can obtain what they need. There is little joy and much pessimism in their
lives.

The next stage, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, is from one and a

half to three years of age. Here the child says, "I want to do it myself!" and
tries to do things his way. The "terrible twos" are part of this stage.
During this time parents really need to shape the child's behavior, giving
guidance yet letting the child try new things and develop some autonomy.
If the child has too much harsh control, he may begin to doubt himself or
may demand his own way. Later, he may say, "My father told me I could
never do anything right." If too much maturity is expected too early, the
child may develop a sense of shame and a sense of doubt--more was
expected than could be delivered.

On the other hand, if the child is given too much freedom with little

control and is allowed to do things that are dangerous, he may begin to
think he can do anything he wants to. But then he runs up against the
harsh, cruel world, and ends up thinking, "Uh-oh. Maybe I can't handle
life," and develops a sense of doubt. It takes great wisdom to guide a child
at this stage.

The next stage, initiative vs. guilt, is from the ages of three to six

years. The child is expanding and testing his wings, and also beginning to
develop friendships. Up until this age, most relationships involve parallel
play. At this stage skills for relating to other people are developed.
Children want to do even more, and parents have to set limits. If the child

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does not develop a sense of initiative--that he or she is capable of
performing tasks that are given to him or her--the result is often guilt.
This is also the stage, incidentally, when boys and girls engage in sexual
exploration, and "play doctor," examining each other. Guidance needs to
be given, but a very negative reaction from parents can later create a severe
sense of guilt regarding sexuality.

During this stage, at ages four, five, or six, children are more verbal

and are also much more active. They explore more and are always asking
"Why?" If the parent's response is, "Oh, shut up. I'm tired of you bother-
ing me," the child may conclude there is something wrong in asking why,
thus limiting healthy exploration. At this stage, children are also very
egocentric, and if the parent is angry or is going through a difficult time,
the child can develop a sense of "This must be my fault. I am very bad." If
parents divorce during this stage, a child may feel he or she caused it, and
guilt may be carried over into adult life.

Missionary kids who have very busy parents may have the idea, "If I

were really a good child, Mom and Dad would want to be with me. Why
are they always working instead?" They may decide, "There's something
wrong with me," and may act out accordingly. Or they may go into adult
life with extreme guilt and shame or anger and resentment.

The next stage is industry vs. inferiority, ages six through eighteen.

In this stage, relationships are developed as children learn give and take in
their play. It is also the stage for learning skills--the tools of their
particular culture. Schooling plays an important part. If a child is
repeatedly called "stupid" or put down, he may internalize that he really
doesn't have the capacity to learn skills, even though his school grades may
be good and he may later make good contributions to the church and
workplace. If children receive encouragement and affirmation they need,
they learn how to live: how to relate to others meaningfully, and how to
develop the skills necessary to be effective.

The implications of this are tremendous. If parents are critical or

overbearing, or if they give little reinforcement, guidance, or consistent
discipline, children may develop a deep feeling of inferiority. Many
people, including MKs, develop this. For example, what if an MK attends
a boarding school where there are dozens of children cared for by only a

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few adults and controlled by an abundance of rules? How can there be
adequate reinforcement? The child may be very gifted, yet feel inferior,
deciding, "I can't do things right." And the child may have difficulty
believing the truth of a God who says, "I have gifted everyone, including
you. You are gifted and loved and significant."

The next stage is identity vs. identity confusion, ages eighteen

through twenty-nine. While identity continues to develop throughout life,
there is a major working and re-working of identity issues in the adolescent
and young adult years. At this stage a person says, "This is who I am; this
is what I want to be; this is what I want to do." This stage is negotiated far
more easily if the previous levels have been successfully completed. If the
individual has a good sense of trust, a sense of autonomy, is allowed to
develop initiative and the skills necessary for life, then that person can say,
"I know who I am, and I know what I can do." For many people, however,
this stage evidences much confusion, as they change college majors
numerous times and wander around struggling with what they believe and
what they want from life.

MKs are often at one end of the spectrum or the other. The majority

are very goal-directed and have a very definite sense of identity, while
others seem to flounder. Some have taken being an MK as an identity.
Instead of saying, "This is who I am and what I want to do," they say, "I
am an MK." People don't say they are an architect's kid or a doctor's kid
or a factory worker's kid, but many MKs use that identity to say who they
are. It is an identity they are proud of, and a significant number of MKs
live out that identity by becoming missionaries themselves.

The next stage, intimacy vs. isolation, occurs in adult life. If earlier

stages have been negotiated well, people enter adult life and develop the
kinds of intimate relationships necessary for fulfillment. If not, isolation is
often the result, or there is a seemingly never-ending search for an intimate
relationship. Many MKs develop good intimacy patterns, but some
become very isolated. They feel different or strange, and may pull
themselves away, saying, "I'm just independent and self-sufficient." They
may fail to develop the intimate relationships they need because of bruising
that has taken place over a lifetime.

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A Word of Warning

It is important to sound a note of warning. In many Christian circles

there is an emphasis on what "God can do for me". When people come to
Christ they become new creatures, and Christ is in the process of making
them whole. Some conclude that as a result, they will not have the normal
problems that non-Christians have and will escape the pain of bruising.
Missionaries might pray, "God, we have committed ourselves to your
service; please protect our children from bruising." God does indeed give
grace, but being a missionary's kid does not exempt one from the pains and
struggles of life. Christians die of cancer; Christians have broken legs;
Christians have emotional problems. If a child is not given adequate
encouragement, guidance, and discipline, that child will develop inadequate
boundaries whether that child is a Christian or not. And being an MK does
not give special privileges. It is very easy to develop an attitude that God
owes us. "Lord, I'm a missionary's kid! My parents served you. They
sacrificed and one of those sacrifices was having to make educational
choices for us as kids, but, Lord, I had to suffer as a result of that, too.
Now, don't you owe me a little?" The attitude may be subtle or masked,
but it is often there.

What God does say is, "I will never leave you nor forsake you. In the

midst of your bruising, I will be there. And know that I've been bruised,
too!" The Son of God himself was bruised. He was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, he was a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. Christ does understand us, and we can count on
him to be with us even in the deepest valley.

Three Levels of Longings

In his book, Inside Out, Larry Crabb addresses the feeling that our

spiritual life should take care of our emotional life. He talks about three
different levels of longings or needs. The first one he calls casual longings
or needs. These longings are not really all that important to us, and we can
deal with them pretty easily when disappointed. For example, if a person
wants chocolate ice cream but doesn't get it, no big deal.

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The second level is critical longings, such as the need for good

interpersonal relationships and the sense that one can contribute something
to the world. If these psychological needs are not met, there can be much
anguish or pain. If a person does a job well and nobody acknowledges it,
that can be painful. If a person wants and needs a close relationship, but
that need is not met, it is painful. Some people approach midlife having
wanted very much to get married and have children, but they haven't.
There can be a lot of pain associated with that.

Critical longings are evident at a very young age. For example, if a

four-year-old child is lost in a department store, the anguish can be intense.
People who have experienced loss through repeated separations with
adequate opportunity to resolve it may experience deep and ongoing
anguish and pain because critical longings have not been met.

There's a third level that Larry Crabb calls crucial needs. Our most

crucial need is for a close and healthy relationship with our God, the
Creator of the world. We sometimes try to meet that crucial need by filling
our lives with people or things--material things, events, travel, food,
substances. However, it is impossible to meet the crucial need for an
intimate personal relationship with God by filling our lives with people.
They can help, but our ultimate need is for close personal communion with
God. By the same token, though, being in a close personal relationship
with God does not meet all our critical needs. The two great command-
ments are, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul,
strength, and mind," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Both
of these needs are vital; one is crucial in Crabb's formulation, the other
one is critical. If we have an empty spot in the area of interpersonal
relationships, we can't fill it simply by going to God. People can spend
time with God every day but still be lonely and bruised because they need
other people.

Symptoms of Unhealed Bruises

What are some of the symptoms or signals that a person has bruising

which has not been healed? Esther Schubert, a psychiatrist and adult MK,
talks about "Four Discrepancies."

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1. When we experience emotions without a known cause, something

is getting triggered which may be the result of bruising. There may be
times when a person experiences a real sense of pain and doesn't know
why. For example, a pilot during the Vietnam war heard the news about
the fall of Da Nang. All of a sudden, tears came like a flood, and he cried
for hours without understanding why. Finally, he realized that he had never
grieved over Vietnam and what he had seen there. Later he was able to put
into words, "I had walked those streets. I knew some of those people, and
it hurts me deeply." His emotional reaction was triggered by something he
had not been aware of.

Or a person may start feeling depressed or sad for seemingly no

reason at all. For example, more than one adult MK becomes very cold,
mechanical, and detached when he has to take a long trip and leave his wife
and children. What is triggered may be the defense mechanism which was
developed to deal with the pain and loss of multiple separations from his
own parents as a child. Emotional reactions of great intensity or without
known cause usually indicate an unresolved early childhood issue.

2. Physical illness without a physical cause, or a psychosomatic

problem. A person may have various vague pains that no one can fully
diagnose. Of course there can also be undiagnosed exotic or tropical
illnesses that doctors have no experience with, but often when there is a
physical illness without a known cause it indicates some kind of
unresolved, hidden issue.

3. A discrepancy in intensity, such as a hundred-dollar temper

tantrum over a five-dollar offense. If a person gets extremely angry at
something, and the intense reaction is much more than what would be
expected, it is important to look for the trigger. For example, an MK may
learn over the years to keep feelings under control. Then after marriage, a
spouse will say, "I don't like the way you said that." If the MK reacts by
getting extremely defensive or by wanting to run away and never come
back, the trigger may be based on an early experience of being left at
boarding school after a day when the parents were displeased. The reaction
may be completely out of proportion to the current marriage situation, and
it may be related to a long-forgotten incident from childhood.

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4. A discrepancy between facts and feelings. One MK told about

planning to visit some people in Taiwan. They had told her they would
have a three-bedroom apartment and she could stay with them. Before
leaving for Taiwan, she wrote them a letter and asked if everything was
ready. They wrote back a very apologetic letter saying, "We weren't able
to get the three-bedroom apartment; we only have a one-bedroom
apartment, and we will have other guests, so you won't be able to stay
here." The fact was there was no space, but what she felt was that they
didn't want her. When there are unconscious issues, the facts may say one
thing, but feelings can be very, very different!

5. An additional discrepancy not mentioned by Esther Schubert is: A

discrepancy between perceived reaction and actual reaction

. A

missionary kid was in a therapy group when someone expressed some very
inflammatory opinions. The MK became very very angry, and everyone in
the group knew it. Someone said, "You're angry, aren't you?" And the
MK responded, "No, I'm not angry. You can believe whatever you want."
The other person asked, "Then why are your fists and teeth clenched, and
why is your face getting red?" What happened here? The MK had grown
up believing that he had to be perfect and that if he expressed anger, there
would be severe punishment. So, any time he started to get angry, he just
shut it off. He didn't even realize that he was angry and didn't believe his
anger was observable.

Other MKs may not be aware of the sadness they feel. Before they

leave on a trip, a spouse or a friend may say, "You've got this drawn look
around your mouth and face like you're about to cry." But the MK may be
unaware of it and may have grown up believing he or she wasn't allowed to
feel sadness and was supposed to be strong and unmoved by pain. That is
a discrepancy between a perceived reaction and the actual reaction.

Bruising Affects the Handling of Emotions

Besides these five discrepancies, there are other ways that bruising

affects the way MKs handle emotions. There is a high incidence of burn-
out and depression

in missionaries, and some of the most tireless workers

are the ones who have grown up on the mission field. Sometimes bruising
from their past drives them; they feel they have to prove themselves, and as

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a result, they get burned out or depressed. Also, depression may be
triggered by a separation if there is too much pain associated with it.

Another area is intimacy problems. At one extreme, there is the very

independent person who doesn't seem to need anybody, and at the other
extreme, there is the very dependent, clingy person who is constantly
looking for approval and nurturing. The parents may have been very busy,
working hard for the Lord. Busyness is prevalent now throughout the
world, with a heavy emphasis on performance and productivity, and as a
result nurturing is lost. Then, when the children of these parents become
adults they may experience depression, burnout, or intimacy problems.

Fear and anxiety

are other symptoms. Fear usually has a known

cause, and anxiety may be more diffuse or generalized. A person can have
a fear or phobia of snakes yet function very well if there are not snakes
around. Or, a person may be very anxious about life but not have a partic-
ular phobia. There may be things in a child's life which engender fear but
no way to deal with them--no one to talk to or help them handle the fear.
In adult life, the result can become generalized anxiety, or sometimes panic
attacks.

Low self-esteem

also occurs, often in the Christian world. People are

often told not to boast, so they don't let others know of their strengths. If
someone receives a compliment, he or she may say, "It wasn't me. The
Lord did it." But the apostle Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me." The word "I" is "ego" in the Greek. God works in
us, and we also have a part in the performance of the task. Instead of
saying, "The Lord did it," we can say, "Thank you, and I know the Lord
helped me do it." Low self- esteem causes some people to feel that nothing
they do has any merit or value. Since they believe they can't accomplish
anything, they don't try. The result is often that the Lord's work suffers
because gifted people are not doing what they can do.

Sources of Bruising

Let's consider some specific sources of bruising in missionary kids.

These are not true for everybody, but many MKs have experienced them.
One of them is multiple separations without being able to resolve the
separation and grieve over it

--to talk it out, to cry, to settle it in one's

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mind. A child is away from Mom and Dad for the first time. He or she
cries, but there is no one to spend time nurturing and comforting. Someone
may even tell the child to shut up, and he or she soon learns that grieving is
not permitted.

Multiple separations also take place, without having time to grieve

because of the fast-paced world in which we live. Missionaries often travel
thousands of miles in a day, moving quickly from one culture to another.
Family and friends have been left behind, and there has been a whirlwind
of activity ever since the missionary received the appointment. When is
there time to grieve? The missionary may feel exhausted and/or depressed,
not realizing that grieving takes time and energy, and unprocessed grief
often leads to exhaustion and depression.

Another source of bruising for MKs has been traumatic situations.

Revolutions, wars, observing atrocities, going through military coups,
having national co-workers and friends murdered, all produce intense pain
and leave scars. As a result the MK may shut down emotionally in order to
deal with the pain, and bruising takes place.

Another source of bruising is sexual abuse. There is a much greater

incidence of it among missionary kids than most people know. Sexual
abuse is any sexual contact between an adult and a child, or between a
teenager and a child at least five years younger, or between an older child
and a younger child when the older child has been placed in authority. It is
not limited to sexual intercourse but may involve sexual touching, fondling,
oral sex, or pornography. Many people who have sexual difficulties in
marriage had some unwanted and usually hidden sexual contact with an
adult or older child when younger. For example, when there has been
sexual contact between a teenager and a younger child on a mission station,
how does the younger child tell the parents what the teenager has done? If
the child talks about it, the teenager may be severely reprimanded and the
family sent back to their home country.

Threats may have been made if the child tells. An adult who molests

a young girl may threaten, "If you tell, I'll say you are lying, people will
believe me and not you, and people will know you did a bad thing and are a
bad girl." Or the adult may threaten the child with punishment or death.
How does a little child deal with that? She often develops a deep sense of
shame: "I'm bad. The adult knows what is good. I must be the bad

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person." The child may grow up with the sense of being very, very bad and
may either act out sexually or have difficulty with sexual intimacy in a
legitimate context.

This happens much more frequently than most people realize. In the

United States, the currently accepted statistic is that one out of four women
were sexually abused as children, and it is unrealistic to think that
missionaries and MKs are exceptions. If a child suddenly develops
symptoms of sleeplessness or withdrawal, seems to have deep secrets that
are not talked about, or suddenly starts acting out for no apparent reason, it
is wise to begin to suspect bruising going on. It may or may not be sexual
abuse. It is wise to spend more time with the child, asking her questions,
finding out about her relationships with both children and adults, and both
nationals and missionaries. It is important to be aware and to keep lines of
communication open.

It is also important to know that for those who may have suffered

from sexual abuse there is help available, and there is hope. Good
professional and spiritual resources are available, and healing can result.

Finally, bruising is caused by physical and emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse can take many forms. Children can be very cruel, even
abusive if someone has a physical defect or noticeable feature--a high
voice, large ears or feet, or a birthmark. Teasing from other children can
result in feelings of something being desperately wrong. Abuse can also
come from people in charge--teachers, staff, houseparents, other mission-
aries or nationals with whom the child comes in contact. Often overworked
and under pressure and stress, these adults may lose control, call children
names or criticize them, and bruising takes place.

Physical abuse

does not refer to a spanking that is deserved and

administered under control. Some of what was considered acceptable
corporal punishment a generation ago was actually abuse as it is
understood now. Much pain is associated with physical abuse, and the
child almost always thinks he or she is at fault and that abusive adults are
right to be doing whatever they are doing. Physical abuse can also take the
form of shaming. Making a public display of a child who wet the bed is
severely shaming and devastating.

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Learning to Deal with Bruising

How do kids deal with these experiences? Very often what they do is

repress or deny them. They may shut down and not allow themselves to
feel pain or grief. They may not feel much joy either, because repressing
one emotion acts as a blanket for other emotions. Defense mechanisms
may become deeply entrenched. In order to deal with bruising it may be
necessary to talk it out at length, perhaps with a trained counselor.

Christ is also a resource throughout the process of working through

the effects of bruising, and he is committed to our growth and maturity. It
is also crucial to remember that we are not alone in being bruised. Abuse,
neglect, overwork, separations, parents who work too hard--these are
common to people the world over. We all have these experiences to one
degree or another, and all of us have been bruised and need to be healed
from unhealthy patterns. We need to be gentle and understanding with
ourselves and each other, giving grace and forgiveness where needed and
dealing with ourselves and one another with kindness and compassion. As
Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving
one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."

Based on a presentation given at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

Part IV:

Resilient
Families

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Resolution V

Strengthening Families

Whereas we are all commanded in Scripture to encourage and
build up each other, and

Whereas ICMK has increased our awareness of the special needs
of missionary families,

We, the delegates of ICMK Nairobi, commit ourselves to
implement ministries of encouragement to missionary families
both when the children are young and when they are adults.

Resolution VI

Healthy Development

We, the delegates of ICMK Nairobi, commit ourselves to
developing and supporting programs which enable MKs to
develop maximally their intellectual, emotional, social, and
spiritual capabilities, and witnessing to the world of God's love,
grace, and provision.

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Resolution X

Support for Crossing Cultures

Whereas among those called as missionaries are families who
serve in cross-cultural settings, and

Whereas the missionary family is intended to be a visible
demonstration of the effects of the Gospel and a testimony to
the host culture, and

Whereas the necessary intercultural movement requires
significant transitions in lifestyle and social relationships,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi acknowledge the importance
of appropriate transitional assistance, counsel, and other
resources for all members of the missionary family and
covenant to encourage and support missionary organizations
in the further development and delivery of such assistance.

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20.

Raising Resilient MKs

Diane Morris

When a young boy went hiking with his grandfather one day, they

came upon a cocoon swinging back and forth wildly on the branch of a
nearby bush. Entranced by the chaotic motion of the cocoon, the young boy
took out his pocket knife and slit the cocoon. A wet, straggly butterfly fell
into his palm, struggled a little and then ceased to move. "Grandfather, I
freed the butterfly. Why doesn't he fly away?" the young boy exclaimed in
despair.

"Grandson, what have you done? The struggle the butterfly puts up to

crack the cocoon strengthens his wings and makes him able to fly. If you
take away his struggle, he will never learn that which makes him a true
butterfly. It's too late for this one. Next time observe and encourage; don't
do it for him."

1

The caterpillar struggling in the cocoon, emerging as a beautiful

butterfly, is a wonderful picture of resilience and yet resilience seems too
weak a word. It seems to have become a new buzz word in missionary
circles because of the concern to strengthen missionary families. It seems,
however, from reading the Scriptures and looking at the lives of missionary
families who persevere in the midst of hardships, that it needs to be defined
at a deeper level than the ability-to-bounce-back sense in which it is usually
defined.

Webster defines resilience as "an ability to recover from or adjust

easily to misfortune or change; capable of withstanding shock without
permanent deformation or rupture," with synonyms such as flexible, hardy,
tenacious, stalwart, faithful and valiant

. These are all good, yet they still

seem to fall short of the Scriptures' standard of going through the refiner's
fire and coming forth as gold.

The missionary community is indebted to Laura Mae Gardner,

Wycliffe counselor, for her detailed work in this area. She defines resilience
as "a luminous quality that requires a dark screen to bring its parts to life.
Like courage, it shows up when situations are fearful. Like integrity, it
shows up best in an atmosphere of corruption and deceit. Like excellence,

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it is most startling when seen on a background of mediocrity. Like
righteousness, it takes conscious effort.

"Resilience is an added component to health, one that is essential in

those who live and thrive in cross-cultural ministries.... Health may simply
equate ... comfort and adjustment. I believe a healthy missionary family
must have and demonstrate the quality of resilience in order to remain
stable, effective, and productive."

2

For the past two years, the annual MK Educators and Caregivers

Consultation, made up of representatives of sixteen mission organizations,
has concentrated on the importance of strengthening the missionary family,
recognizing that resilient MKs come from resilient missionary families.
The MK CART/CORE research has turned its emphasis from adult MKs
to missionary families because research up to the present has shown that
the higher the family relationships are rated, the higher the
spiritual/emotional well-being of the MK.

But this does not mean becoming ingrown, neglecting the primary

purpose of the Great Commission in order to focus on the family. The
missionary task will always be to win men, women, and children to a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If this is not done within the
context of strong, healthy families, the declaration of the gospel will fall on
skeptical ears. Dave Pollock illustrates this dramatically with a story from
Kenya. During a meeting with missionaries and Kenyan church leaders, a
missionary was mentioning the difficulties of being away so much in
ministry when another missionary said, "But if we hadn't done that,
perhaps Kenya would not be evangelized to the extent that it is now." The
African bishop replied, "If you had come and shown us in the beginning
how to take care of our families properly, we would not have to re-
evangelize Kenya every generation."

Rev. Pollock quotes a leading evangelical from Latin America, "If

Latin America needs one thing, it is the demonstration of a healthy family
that bespeaks the reality of God. Psalm 78:57 reminds us that God
"commanded our fathers to teach their children so that the next generation
might know them, the children yet unborn, so that they should set their
hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his command-
ments." The proper response seems to be the sending of strong missionary

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families who both teach and model, within and without the family circle, a
vital, visible faith. This must be a faith that demonstrates the faithfulness
and power of God through the transitions, troubles, and trials of missionary
life, including everything from normal stress to coups or catastrophes. Dr.
V. Raymond Edman, past president of Wheaton College, firmly believed
that committed Christians should be able to go through trials not just
somehow, but triumphantly.

Building Resilience in Today's World

The world today proclaims that we should never have troubles or

problems. If there is physical pain, take a pill. If there is emotional pain,
seek out a therapist. If circumstances get you down, change them. If there is
stress on the job or in the family, discard one or both. Thank God for pills
to relieve pain and for Christian therapists who help people work through
damaged emotions. Let us not forget, however, that God never promised
his people stress-free lives. On the contrary, like the caterpillar, we are
reminded many times in Scripture that the struggle is the very means of
growing godly character.

Romans 5:35 is one of the clearest statements to this effect: "We

rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and
endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does
not disappoint us." The end result of suffering is not hopelessness but
hope, and godly character is a side benefit! James 1:12 tells us plainly that
the one who endures, when he is tried "shall receive the crown of life,
which God has promised to those who love him." Romans 8:2829 is not a
Pollyanna "everything will come out all right" statement. It declares that
"In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have
been called according to his purpose." Verse 29, often left out of the quote,
tells us that the purpose is "that we might be conformed to the likeness of
his Son"--made to look like him, whose life was full of stress including
both emotional and physical suffering. He endured for the joy set before
him.

But How?

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Martha Strickland of CB International reminds us that the desire to

feel trim and fit requires the effort of exercise. "Unfortunately, our innate
desire to be comfortable permeates our lives and the lives of our children.
In making educational choices for MKs, we tend to lean toward the
comfortable, avoiding decisions that introduce challenge or any kind of
hardship."³ It happens in the classroom when challenging students to think
takes too much energy because they would rather do something fun. It
happens in choosing curriculum because we naturally shy away from that
which is unfamiliar or which requires a great deal of preparation. Martha
speaks the truth when she says we cannot hope for strong muscles while
avoiding exercise any more than we can hope for strength of character and
resiliency in our MKs while protecting them from challenges.

Teachers and MK school personnel do have opportunity to incor-

porate resilience-building activities into the lives of their students but it
happens much more easily if it begins at home.

Essential Characteristics of Healthy, Resilient Families

--A God-focused family living Deut. 6:17. Families who obviously

love the Lord with all their hearts then teach their children. Faith in the
person, the character and the power of the living, loving God must show in
everyday family life. Their "personal relationship with God is central to
who they are and what they do."

4

Without this, the other ingredients lose

their meaning.

--A strong father in the home and a strong father-child relationship.

Too often, children of Christian workers say, "Father was there for others
but not for me. Carol Herrmann, in her study of MK adjustment concluded
that the best way for a father to care for his children is to demonstrate love
for their mother.

5

The MK Cart/Core research came to the following

conclusion: When the father showed either acceptance or rejection, it was
more powerful than the mother's acceptance or rejection.

--They work through stressful situations together. As parents learn to

avoid a victim mentality and practice working through tough times along
with the children, depending on the Lord together, the children will begin to
incorporate that process into their own lives. Nick Pauls states, "What
takes place in the family sets the course for what will continue to be.... The

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MK's experience today sets the foundation for how he or she will adjust to
the changes or recover from the misfortunes of tomorrow." --They live in
an atmosphere of encouragement and affirmation, given in terms of who
they are more than what they accomplish. There are creative ways of
demonstrating this, both in the home and in the classroom. One family
makes placemats or banners for birthdays, writing on them the fruits of the
Spirit which they see in the child. There are many ways in which both
teachers and parents can say, "We love you and you are important." The
story is told of the little boy who had trouble memorizing. When his class
planned to do a play, he desperately wanted a part. The afternoon of the
tryouts, his mother stood anxiously in the doorway, waiting to comfort him.
To her surprise, he came skipping happily down the sidewalk. "Did you get
a part?" she asked. "Yes!" he exclaimed. "I've been chosen to clap and
cheer!" Smart teacher!

--They have developed meaningful family rituals. Having been

released from the Nazi prison camp, Corrie ten Boom was once asked,
"During your childhood years, did your father ever do anything that helped
you in that difficult time of your imprisonment?" Corrie responded, "Every
night, when he tucked me in, my father used to place his hand lovingly on
my cheek. During those dark nights in prison, I would ask my Heavenly
Father to place his hand lovingly on my cheek as my father had done."
Most families have some such rituals and they need to be continued on the
mission field. This tells the children that, in the midst of many changes,
there are some things that don't change and they belong to us, just as we
belong to each other. Many classrooms have also been knit together by
rituals developed by a creative teacher. Celebrations, both planned and
spontaneous, should be a major part of every family and classroom. They
should be frequent and creative, expressing appreciation and affirmation.

--They show physical affection to one another. Carol Herrmann's

study on MKs strongly supported the premise that children who saw their
parents showing affection to one another were more secure in their own
emotional lives. Showing physical affection to children is equally
important. Let us not forget how Jesus used the magic of touch with
children, an adolescent and even adults. What can we learn from this?

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--They have fun together. Are we fun to live with? To be with? Some

of the most godly families are the ones who also have the most fun! This is
also true of some of the best teachers.

--They know the meaning of gentle, but firm and consistent

discipline. One of the requirements for Christian leadership, according to
Paul's instruction to Timothy, was that the children should be obedient and
respectful. Respect is a missing ingredient in many families today. Both
stability and trust are built into children's lives by knowing what is
expected of them and having the standard field firmly in place. A
thought-provoking magazine article points out that a child's trust is
destroyed when he is told, "If you..., then I..." and the "then" doesn't
happen. At that moment, the child has learned our word cannot be trusted
and we become guilty of emotional child abuse!

7

Another part of discipline is developing a sense of responsibility and

wholesome work, allowing the child to learn both the rewards of
accomplishment and the consequences of neglect. When families live by
principles instead of rules and every family member understands the
principles behind the rules and expectations, discipline becomes less of a
problem. When children are in control, they become extremely insecure
because they instinctively know they are not capable of handling that much
power. They will continue to push the boundaries until they hold firm and
the ensuing level of family stress becomes explosive.

--They have, as a family, a deep sense of calling and commitment to

the task. According to a study on missionary family adaptation, missionary
families with a collective sense of meaning and purpose to their lives adapt
better on the field. "For this reason, it seems important that missionary
families take time to identify their sense of calling to the mission field as a
family

. This family calling would enable the members to have a shared

belief that the experience of the stresses, strains and hardships of
missionary life and service is insignificant in comparison to the glory of
God being revealed in and through them to the world."

8

The MK Cart/Core researchers have also found that the adult MKs

who felt they were a significant part of their parents' ministries had, as
adults, a greater sense of spiritual/emotional stability. Every effort must be
expended, both by parents and by mission organizations, to keep

Raising Resilient MKs

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missionary children from feeling they are tag-alongs to their parents'
ministry. One missionary family who has successfully brought their
children "in" said that praying through the possibility together from the
beginning made a big difference. Searching the Word together also played
an important part as they enjoyed giving each other Bible verses that
seemed relevant. "Once our boys felt they were invited into the call in these
ways, no hardship, adjustment, hassles, or inconveniences seemed to
trouble them."

--They have meaningful family, as well as personal devotions.

Children must know that their parents maintain a daily, deep, and personal
relationship with God. Family worship should be creative, varied, and
flexible, but not haphazard. Children will draw their own conclusions from
the importance given to this part of the family schedule. For example,
instead of foregoing prayer as a family after a late evening appointment,
the family can pray together in the car on the way home.

9

Many families use music, teaching, and discussing the words to

meaningful hymns and choruses that coincide with current family
experiences. Singing together often becomes part of their most treasured
memories.

Memorizing Scripture together as particular verses meet special

family needs is a great way to pass on the family faith. Reviewing favorite
Scripture passages is an effective way of remembering God's faithfulness
and can have a lasting impact on the faith of each member of the family
(Isaiah 38:19b). Clear evidence that family devotions are "taking" is when
the family prays together at other times as well.

--They have learned the importance of delayed gratification and

self-denial for the sake of future benefit for themselves or others. This
element is one of the most glaring empty sets in today's world. Elisabeth
Elliot comments: "he earlier parents begin to make the laws of order and
beauty and quietness comprehensible to their children, the sooner they will
acquire good, strong notions of what is so basic to real godliness,
self-denial. A Christian home should be a place of peace and there can be
no peace where there is no self-denial.

"10

Laura Mae Gardner speaks eloquently to this issue, "The hardy

person does not insist on having all his needs met. He understands that

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going without won't kill him. He is able to forego gratification. He knows
that Philippians 4:11--12 precedes Philippians 4:19 and he remembers
that Jesus had unmet needs too."

11

Implications for MK School Personnel and Caregivers

Most of what has been said so far has been directed toward parents.

While acknowledging that parents are, indeed, primarily the ones
responsible for the strength of character of their children's lives, there are
ways that other MK caregivers can encourage and reinforce these elements
of resiliency in the lives of those who are in their temporary care.

1. There are many opportunities for input into the lives of missionary

parents, whether through parent-teacher conferences or in more direct
counseling sessions. Parents are usually looking for tangible, practical
ideas which they can implement in their own families. The family
ingredients mentioned here can be shared spontaneously or deliberately,
informally or formally, in part or in total, as the occasion allows.

2. MK caregivers can recognize the importance young people place on

belonging and relationships. Dr. John Powell points out that, as Psalm 8
shows how significant we are in God's eyes, "...so our children should be
in our eyes and so our families should be in the mission's eyes." He gives
the Three R's related to a sense of belonging. People need to have a
response

from others. The need for relationship cannot be overestimated.

There is also a need for redemption. When mistakes are made that hurt
relationships, those mistakes need to be redeemed.

In this context, how can children be taught about making mistakes and

be assured that they are still loved? Too often the confrontation process
between young people and adults, whether parents, teachers or boarding
parents seems to be more punitive than redemptive. One way to correct this
is to keep discipline in the context of the Three R's, remembering that
Discipline without relationship leads to rebellion.

12

3. Nick Pauls affirms the role of MK caregivers when he states that,

along with parents, "MK caregivers also have a profound impact on MK
resilience. They are the adults who have the privilege and responsibility
that comes from spending significant amounts of time with MKs during
their formative years. Sometimes they are the only adults who are phys-

Raising Resilient MKs

191

ically and emotionally close enough to the MKs to notice times of crisis or
great joy in their lives. The way they respond has the potential of lifting or
breaking the child's heart. The way they see caregivers adjust to change or
recover from misfortune in their own lives will also be the model from
which MKs will choose elements for their own lives."

13

4. All MK caregivers can incorporate many of the family elements

into their particular contexts. There are at least six of them which can be
incorporated easily into classrooms, boarding homes, MK training
programs, and other MK counseling situations. The most important task of
missionary parents and all MK caregivers is to make God visible to
children by reflecting him in all areas of life. Just as real estate agents
declare that the three most important factors in buying a home are
"location, location, location," so the three most important ingredients in
raising strong, resilient MKs are modeling, modeling, modeling.

Wherever they are in the world, missionary families will face the trials

of life. To welcome the refiner's fire because it brings us closer to the Lord
Jesus is to have the faith of Job when he said, "when he hath tried me, I
shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10). As MK caregivers, let us commit
ourselves to implanting into the lives of young people those qualities which
will enable them to become, as Oswald Chambers writes, "radiantly and
joyously God's." This is true resilience.

Notes

1. Llynco Associates, Inc. Spring, 1996.
2. "What Is a Healthy Missionary Family?" Paper presented at Inter-

national Congress on the Family, Denver, Colorado, July 5, 1995.
Gardner, Laura Mae.

3. Strickland, Martha, "A Good Workout" Catalyst, Vol. 4, No. 1, CB

International.

4. Pauls, Nick and Dora. "Maintaining Missionary Family and MK Resil-

ience" Wycliffe Bible Translators, CHED Family Service.

5. Herrmann, Carol, "Foundational Factors of Trust and Autonomy

Influencing the Identity Formation of the Multicultural Life-style MK."
Dissertation, Northwestern University, Roseville, Minnesota, 1977.

6. Pauls, Ibid.
7. Hallsted, Bill D., "To Abuse a Child Gently" Moody Monthly, April,

1989.

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8. Stenberg, Brad, "Missionary Family Adaptation: An Empirical Inquiry

into the Role of Stressors, Family Coping Resources, Coherence and
Hardiness." Unpublished dissertation, p. 3.

9. Pauls, Ibid.
10. Elliot, Elisabeth, "A Child Learns Self-Denial; The Elisabeth Elliot

Newsletter

, February, 1989.

11. Gardner, Laura Mae, "The Hardy Personality;" Wycliffe Bible

Translators, Counseling Department, 1988.

12. Powell, John, "A Conceptual Framework for Family Ministry." MK

CART/CORE, April 27, 1995.

13. Pauls, Ibid.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission of World Report,

November/ December 1996

193

21.

Family Dynamics That Affect the MK

John Powell

Yes, missions have dysfunctional families. Their members don't wear

T-shirts emblazoned with a large "D," and many of their dysfunctional
behavior patterns may be invisible to those outside the family. However,
the behavior of children from such families often yields clues to family
dysfunction. Such observations may provide an opportunity for
intervention and eventual assistance.

What Is a Dysfunctional Family?

The term "dysfunctional" is a current "in" word in North American

culture. Nearly any unusual behavior is an occasion to invoke the term.
Buzzwords such as "ACOA" (Adult Children of Alcoholics) and "co-
dependent" are often thrown around, perhaps doing injustice to the
complexities and pain which lie back of their coinage in the first place.
There is a growing awareness, however, that more and more families seem
unable to meet the legitimate needs of their members and, in true American
style, we have coined terms and concepts to describe them.

Coming from studies of individuals growing up with alcoholic par-

ents, victims of abuse from family members, and others whose needs for
healthy development were thwarted through inadequate parenting or patho-
logical family behavior, the term "dysfunctional family" has been used to
describe a range of backgrounds and behavior patterns varying in effect
and severity. It has become overused so as to lack precise meaning.

Adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) and victims of sexual,

physical, and emotional abuse within the family can be clearly designated
as coming from dysfunctional families. Others who have experienced a
deficit in basic care because of some behavioral pattern or psychological
pathology on the part of parents can also be seen as being from such
families. Basically, the term implies a family whose dynamics are such that
the legitimate psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of its
members are not met. Parents are often implicated, but each member has
some degree of participation.

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The effects on children of such dynamics are detrimental to healthy

behavior in relationships, view of self, and ability to live productive and
satisfying lives. Their behavior is often puzzling or offensive to others.
Sometimes the dynamics are quite subtle and become obvious only in
closer relationships and under careful observation over time. However,
these dynamics and behavior are unlikely to escape the caring and astute
observer in the school situation, and this may be one of the first oppor-
tunities for taking steps toward intervention.

Healthy Families

Dysfunctionality is perhaps best considered in the context of healthy

family functioning. There are five characteristics almost always present in
a healthy functioning family. These are trust, openness, unity, inter-
dependence, and love. The qualities of faith and hope can also be included
for missionary families.

These qualities may vary by degree, situation, or time. However, there

is a more or less abiding presence of them in the dynamics of a healthy
family, and they show up in relationships, communications, and behaviors.
Families with these characteristics generally meet the growth and develop-
mental needs of their children and provide a safe and satisfying environ-
ment in which members can live, love, work, and grow.

Briefly, trust in this healthy family is built by predictability, kept

promises, and fulfilled expectations. Honesty in communication about
events, relationships, and feelings takes place. It is the sense, especially in
children, that Mom or Dad will be there when needed and trusted to
respond in a caring way.

Openness

is shown in the willingness to disclose to one another, to be

open to new experiences and events, and to receive from others expressions
of joy and sadness, excitement and fear, or virtually anything one needs or
wishes to express. This inter-family openness translates to an outward
openness to others beyond the family. At the same time, boundaries are
acknowledged and respected as prerogatives of individuals both within and
outside the family.

Unity

takes into account individual differences, prerogatives, and

boundaries of each person within the family and respects individual rights

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and responsibilities. The family is experienced as being the unifying force
for each member within it and, as such, becomes a whole that is greater
than the sum of its parts. Individual members are clearly committed to one
another and others in positive ways because of their inherent family
strength, yet have permission and encouragement for individual creativity
and pursuits.

Interdependence

takes into account the healthy ways family members

need each other, but not in overly dependent ways. Children grow into this
by moving from almost total dependence on parents, through a certain
surge of independence, to a level of adaptability including appropriate
interdependence. Ultimately, they become aware of meeting needs for
connection with others in mutually responsible and satisfying ways. The
healthy family models this.

Love

is characterized by a healthy expression of putting others first

without denigrating one's own view of and responsibility to self. It is the
continual learning and putting into practice the joy of giving to others, and
of knowing other family members well enough that what is provided is
highly consistent with who they are and what they like and need. As this is
experienced within the family, it readily translates in expression to those
outside the family as well.

Faith

, among other things, is the experience of knowing God as the

creator and sustainer of life, and believing that he is ultimately in control.
This fundamental trust translates into the daily communication and
interactions with other family members in meeting the practical
uncertainties of everyday life. It includes a faith that one can and will take
individual responsibilities, that other family members can be counted on to
be there for one, and that the Lord will provide strength and direction in
times of stress, conflict, and uncertainty. It is experienced interactively,
practiced in subtle and supporting ways, and seen overtly in discussion,
prayer, devotions, and incidental instruction.

Hope

is that characteristic of being able to see beyond the present and

manifest an upbeat attitude even in times of disappointment or uncertainty.
It is based on a foundational faith in and experience of Christ as the center
point of the family. It is shown in practical ways with a lack of negativism
and acknowledgment of present reality (no psychological denial), and

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manifests a commitment to doing what one can in the context of a hope
going beyond mortality.

Unhealthy Families

The three major features of children coming from dysfunctional

families is that they have learned the dictums of Don't trust -- Don't feel
-- Don't tell (or talk).

While these may vary in degree, they have

developed as important for psychological survival in such a family. It is
easy to see that the dynamics creating this web of protection are the
antithesis of those characteristics mentioned above. Obviously, a person
whose energy must go into maintaining this internal stance of not trusting,
feeling, or telling is going to be limited in relationships, opportunities for
growth, and satisfaction. The pattern of protection is based on the need not
to experience the full impact of dysfunctional patterns in one's family, and
many growth opportunities are denied in the process. This will show up in
the classroom and boarding home.

Characteristics of the unhealthy family producing such dynamics are:

distrust, closedness, uniformity, dependence, passivity, fear and disap-
pointment or despair. Utilizing these negative ends, we can construct seven
dimensions which may be helpful in understanding healthiness or
unhealthiness within a family:

Trust

vs. Distrust

Openness

vs. Closedness

Unity

vs. Uniformity

Interdependence

vs. Dependence

Love

vs. Passivity

Faith

vs. Fear

Hope

vs. Disappointment or Despair

The unhealthy family often has a suspicious quality and clearly breeds

distrust of one another in the family. This is often due to some unresolved
conflict, negative behavior pattern, or pathological practice on the part of
one or both of the parents. The pattern of distrust usually translates to
those outside the family as well. The family is generally closed in its

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197

communication with and availability to others, and may isolate itself from
meaningful interaction with those outside the family. There is little
opportunity for true expression of ideas and feelings within the family, and
strong structures may require its members to maintain a certain image to
those outside. Its unhealthy habits and patterns, often seen clearly by the
children, must be denied within the family and protected from disclosure to
others.

One or both parents may insist that the children adhere to rigid rules

and that they conform entirely, often with threats of punishment or with-
holding of customary and healthy activities. There is little room for indi-
viduality or creativity, and individual differences may be ignored. Family
dynamics often dictate that family allegiance always be put first in such a
way that individual expression and creativity are thwarted and high
dependence on the family is created. Children are denied the opportunity to
pursue the usual developmental independence important to healthy growth
and necessary for later healthy interdependence.

Love can be spoken about but not seen or experienced in reality.

Many children's activities and interests are passively observed or ignored.
Sometimes there is open hostility and inappropriate physical punishment,
with "the Lord's work" often cited as reasons for neglect or lack of true
involvement in children's needs and interests. It is not unusual for one
parent to make unreasonable demands on the other because of his or her
own unmet needs and unresolved conflicts. Faith may be given lip service,
even buttressed by scriptural quotations or theological dogma, but it is
lacking in practice. Scripture and theology may even at times be used to
justify unhealthy family practices and relationships, and to thwart attempts
at intervention or improvement. Lack of involvement and interest in
children's growth and activities is the most important aspect of dysfunc-
tionality here.

What School Staff Can Do

Build relationships with children.

School personnel, especially in

boarding schools, are in a unique place to observe children's behavior and
to form relationships with them that may be antithetical to those in
dysfunctional families. The development of a trusting relationship where

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the child or teen can express his or her true feelings and concerns is a good
beginning step. Many children, unable themselves to understand or artic-
ulate the source of their distress, act out their distress and the family's
conflict in the classroom or boarding home, often in symbolic ways. This
may provide the teacher or boarding home parent an avenue for helping
children put their distress into words. Some children, relaxed from family
tensions merely by being in the presence of a loving and functional envir-
onment, may openly disclose aspects of their backgrounds which require
attention.

Build relationships with parents.

Using opportunities for building

relationships with parents is a second important step toward intervention.
Taking time to establish your credibility before confronting them with
unpleasant observations and challenges may go a long way in having your
suggestions accepted. In fact, such relationships may help, as they are
developed, to corroborate certain observations made earlier, and result in
planning more effective assistance later on. Further, they may even, with-
out the necessity of direct confrontation, result in cooperative activities and
collaboration which prevents negative patterns from coming to fruition.

Work in cooperation with concerned others.

It is always important

to involve others within the school who have a legitimate interest in the
child's welfare. This can be useful in confirming some of your obser-
vations, affirming your tentative conclusions about dysfunctionality, and
developing a plan of discussion and assistance to the parents and family
which has the best chance of success. There may also be a time when it is
important to involve mission administration. In extreme cases such as
alcoholism, child abuse, incest, and other more traumatic dysfunctionality,
action must be taken in a loving way by the mission as well as the school.

Be aware of your own dynamics.

Perhaps a good starting place for

utilizing some of the above information for students under your care is to
prayerfully consider your own family background. How did your own
family fit on these seven dimensions? What helped you move from those
areas that were more negative to those that are more positive? How does
your own current family function? What might you do to make it better? As
Henri Nouwen has pointed out, we are all wounded in our own way. Our

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task is to become wounded healers. Perhaps by being sensitive to ourselves
and our own family dynamics, we can be freed to be even more sensitive to
others. Assisting even one person caught in the dynamics of
dysfunctionality might help your year to be the very best!

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from World Report,

April/May/June 1994.

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22.

The Importance of Fathers
in MK Development

David L. Wickstrom

One of the concerns uppermost in the minds of missionaries is the

development and adjustment of their children. While this has always been
a concern, it has only been within the last two decades that parents,
educators, mission administrators, and researchers have focused their
attention on the specific variables which contribute to healthy adjustment
of MKs.

The three International Conferences on Missionary Kids, in Manila

(1984), Quito (1987) and Nairobi (1989) involved hundreds of MKs,
missionary parents and parents-to-be, mental health professionals and
caregivers within the missions community. Articles in periodicals such as
Evangelical Missions Quarterly,

professional journals like the Journal of

Psychology and Theology

, and books with collections of resources, have

contributed greatly to our understanding of MK development.

However, little study has focused on the specific functions and roles

played by individual parents. The purpose of this study is to bring together
some of the available literature on parenting, especially the parenting role
of fathers, and to delineate the ways fathers affect the development of
missionary children.

Mindsets and Presuppositions

Let us consider some common mindsets about the importance of

fathers. Mindsets or presuppositions are usually based on people's his-
tories with their own fathers. An example is: "Well, of course Dad is
important; he's my dad," without any acknowledgement of the roles he
played or the influences he had. Another mindset related to patterns in
U.S. society is, "Dad wasn't all that important; he was never here anyway,
and Mom did everything for us." Or, some would say, "Dad was just as
important as Mom because they shared the load equally," or "Dad

The Importance of Fathers in MK Development

201

influenced me a lot--he played ball with me, talked with me, and took an
interest in everything I did. I love my dad and he loves me."

Mindsets and presuppositions may also be based on what people have

read, have seen on TV or heard on the radio, or have been exposed to in
school. Among Christians, many of the mindsets and presuppositions are
based on a combination of personal experience, biblical teaching, personal
reading, and perhaps a seminar or workshop on the subject. Unfortunately,
not all Christian approaches have been adequately based on good biblical
exegesis, or sound research and theory.

Research

For many years research focused on the role of the mother in child

development. Mothers have provided the bulk of time with and care for
children from birth through the early years, especially in the traditional
nuclear family, in which the father went to work and the mother stayed at
home. Early psychological theory placed great emphasis on mother-child
interactions with the mother as nurturer and primary caregiver. It was not
until the 1960s and early 1970s that research began to focus on the role of
the father. Only recently, in the 1980s and 1990s, has the impact of fathers
been more thoroughly investigated.

The "absent father" phenomenon in our society, coupled with recent

attention given to its effects, has resulted in startling statistics reported by
U.S. government studies as well as sociological and other studies. The
incidence of poverty, teen pregnancy, premarital births, crime,
psychological problems of children, and suicide is dramatically higher for
children with absent fathers than for children with two active parents (See
chart on page 1988). Fatherless children are most commonly found in
single-parent households headed by unmarried women.

Few missionary children are raised in single-parent homes; however,

there may be dynamics similar to the "absent father," because the father
travels a great deal or because his work occupies almost all of his time,
energy, and attention. Even when the father lives under the same roof,
there may be a sense in which he is absent if he is not able to focus
attention on his children. This phenomenon is very common among two-
parent families in the U.S. when the father has a very demanding job or

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career. The years in which young adults focus intensely on skill develop-
ment and career advancement often coincide with the years when it is most
important for children to have active, involved parents.

How Important Are Fathers?

Poverty:

·

Fatherless children are five times more likely to live in poverty than
children living with both parents. (Survey on Child Health, U.S.
Dept. of Health and Human Services)

·

More than 90% of the current AFDC case load is made up of absent-
father families. (The Green Book, Committee on Ways and Means)

Teen Pregnancy:

·

Women reared in single-parent households engage in sexual activity
outside marriage much more often than young women reared in intact
families. (Miller and Bingham, "Family Configuration in Relation to
the Sexual Behavior of Female Adolescents" Journal of Marriage
and Family

, 51, 1989)

·

Teen boys from one-parent households are almost twice as likely to
father a child out of wedlock as teen boys from two-parent families.
(Marsiglio, "Adolescent Fathers in the U.S." Family Planning
Perspectives,

Nov/Dec. 1987)

Crime:

·

A young male is twice as likely to engage in criminal behavior if he is
raised without a father. (June O'Neill, Congressional Record,
August 8, 1995)

Psychological Problems:

·

Children from absent-father homes, whether through out-of-wedlock
birth or divorce, have substantially higher rates of depression,
anxiety, moodiness, and phobia than their peers. (Research summary
in Father Absence: A South Carolina Crisis, Palmetto Family
Council, 1997)

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203

Suicide:

·

Although youths may attempt suicide for a variety of reasons,
research clearly indicates that those from father-absent homes are
much more likely to attempt suicide than their contemporaries from
two-parent families. (Father Absence: A South Carolina Crisis,
Palmetto Family Council, 1997)

Research with Missionary Families

Little research has been done with missionary families. A study was

done in 1975 by David Wickstrom which focused on the relationship
between the ages missionary children were in boarding school and their
self-esteem as adults. The study showed that self-esteem was not signif-
icantly affected by boarding or non-boarding, but it was significantly
affected by relationships with parents. The more that parents commun-
icated loving acceptance, the higher the child's self esteem. The higher the
degrees of excessive control--either punitive control characterized by
physical punishment or pyschological control using fear, guilt, or shame--
the lower was the child's self esteem.

Wickstrom's study showed that there were also correlations between

parenting style and negative attention-seeking behavior in children. If a
child did not feel loved and accepted by parents, he or she would get
attention in some other way. The more a father used methods of control or
discipline which induced guilt, fear, or shame, the more likely it was that
boys would act out in negative ways to get their fathers' attention. A likely
explanation is that boys do not have the need or desire to strike out angrily
when they are not controlled by excessive guilt, shame, or fear.

For girls, acceptance by fathers was significantly correlated with

daughters' admiration of and attraction to their fathers, resulting in a
strong identification with the father and his characteristics. Such a
daughter did not need to act out in order to get attention. If a girl
experienced fear of and disapproval from her father, she was more likely to
be passive and afraid to make decisions on her own. These dynamics are
most powerful in natural father-daughter relationships, but they are also
applicable to substitute fathers such as dorm parents.

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In a study conducted by Dr. William Britt in 1983, there was a

significant correlation between the success of missionaries working
overseas and relationships with fathers in early life (Britt, William, "Pre-
training Variables in the Prediction of Missionary Success Overseas,"
Journal of Psychology and Theology

, 1983, Vol 11, No. 3, 20212).

Those missionaries who had experienced "father absence," defined as
physical absence for any five-year period prior to the fifteenth birthday of
the subject, were more likely to fail as missionaries. Fathers have
historically been responsible for modeling more instrumental (as opposed
to emotional) behaviors and for providing the child with contact with the
outside world. An absence of this apparently makes it more difficult for
new missionaries to meet the demands of a new culture. No such correla-
tions were found between mother absence and missionary success.

Who Was Most Important?

A large study of adult missionary kids was recently completed by

MK-CART/CORE, the Missionary Kid Consultation and Research
Team/Committee on Research and Endowment. (See Chapter 51 on MK
research.) Extensive questionnaires were sent to 1200 adult MKs, and
slightly more than half were returned. Telephone interviews were con-
ducted with a random sample of 50 MKs chosen from those who had
returned questionnaires. One of the questions was, "Who was most im-
portant in your life as you were growing up?" Of the 50 adult MKs
interviewed, 16 said it was their father, 14 said both parents, and only 3
said their mother was the most important person. Other responses were
houseparents (5), teachers (4), siblings (3), friends (3), and others (2).

What was it about the fathers that made them significant? What

character traits and behaviors exhibited by fathers endeared them or at least
made them stand out to their children? The responses to these questions
can be grouped in categories formulated by Gary Chapman in his book,
The Five Love Languages

(Chicago: Northfield Publishing Co., 1995).

They are as follows:

1.

Words of affirmation and encouragement

2.

Acts of service

3.

Quality time spent together

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4.

Giving and receiving of gifts

5.

Physical touch.

The following are comments by MKs which were written on the

questionnaires or obtained from interviews:

"I respected my father very much. He had a great knowledge of the

Bible and lived it in his life... He always turned the other cheek... He was
tough as nails in his basic beliefs. I do wish, however, that he had been
stronger at home in standing up to my mother."

"My dad lived what he believed and was a very warm and compas-

sionate person."

"My best relationship was to my father; my mother too. My father

always expressed confidence in me and took time with me. My father was
more of an encourager and listener. He prayed a lot for us."

"My father had a lot of influence because I felt I could never get his

attention except for discipline and school grades. What I wanted from him
was to listen to me, to spend time with me, even when it wasn't a result of
something I'd done. If my schoolwork was great he'd sit down and talk
with me about it.... I'd go over to the school and work with him just to be
close to him. That's what I wanted most, his time and approval."

"My father was one person I could put my complete trust in. He

nurtured me by his involvement, activities, and being approachable."

"I received weekly letters, most often from my father, especially when

I asked questions. He would write many pages during boarding school.
Any questions received voluminous responses; for example, regarding
doctrinal issues, he presented all sides of the issue, urging thought, prayer,
and a personal decision which he would support. He made it clear where
he stood, but gave freedom for my own decision."

"Dad and I had a very special tie between us. He and I were buddies.

We could also have horrible arguments. When we did disagree horribly it
got back to being father/daughter. I was as strong willed as he was or
maybe more pigheaded than he."

"My father listened to us a lot. When I came back from boarding

school and related negative experiences, he was very good in presenting

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another perspective. I felt like he listened to us but he helped me to see
other sides of many issues."

"I can remember sitting on my father's lap for family devotions as a

child. It's funny, but I can still remember smelling coffee on his breath as
he read the Scriptures in the morning.... My father was a man of prayer. He
was usually a very early riser and he would pray for us in the morning. It's
amazing. It seemed like the station where he lived was always a quiet,
serene place, probably because of his intercession and prayer."

"My father [was most important], because all of us in our family

knew we were priority to him, even more than his ministry. I was very
assured of his love, even at boarding school. We had lots of letters from
him. I remember a time when he had scheduled time with me, and another
missionary wanted time with him. My father refused in order to honor the
time with me. He was not a perfect father, but he had a priority for us."

Throughout these and many other accounts, it is apparent that there

were struggles, difficulties, times of intimacy and closeness, expressions of
warmth and love, and times of argument and sharp words. In addition, the
qualities of integrity and spiritual awareness, biblical knowledge, prayer,
and teaching by word and example, all played an important part in the
influence fathers had on their children. However, it was clear that
perfection was not expected nor found.

In all of these qualities of character and expressions of nurture and

care for children, there is a basic theme of balance. For fathers to have
great significance in the lives of their children, they did not need to be
perfect--not even excellent or good.

"Good Enough" Fathers

In the words of Henry Abramovitch as quoted in Michael Lamb's

Role of the Father in Child Development

(John Wiley & Sons, 1997), a

father of influence needs to demonstrate qualities which might be described
as "good enough" or as "maintaining the golden mean." A good enough
father needs to be "close but not too close," able to be intimate with
children without being too intrusive. He needs to be "strong but not
overwhelming," capable of standing up for what is right and what fits his
belief system while not demanding that the children follow blindly or out of

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fear. A good enough father is "loving but not seductive," able to be close
but not exhibiting a sexual interest or involvement with the child.

The ability to be "supportive but able to discipline" is a challenge for

many fathers. It means standing up for children and encouraging them,
while at times being the strong disciplinarian who gives direction and
administers consequences when necessary. Finally, the good enough father
is caring but encourages autonomy. As one MK stated, "He made it clear
where he stood, but gave freedom for my own decision."

Abramovitch also points out that it is difficult for fathers to know

how to combine the contrasting images of authority and intimacy into a
coherent whole.

God as a Model for Fathers

God is pictured throughout the Scripture in various metaphors bearing

the stamp of a father figure, and presenting a model which we can emulate
in developing our own parenting styles. One formulation is called The
Five P's of Parenting

. In the Lord's Prayer and thoughout the rest of

Scripture, God is presented as a model of the ideal father, not just a "good
enough father." The five P's, listed below, need to be kept in balance.
They were reflected in the MK comments mentioned above as to what
made the father such a significant figure.

1. Presence

The parent is available for the child. In the AMK (adult MK) study,

the father was there for them, not just physically, but also emotionally.
When he was not physically available, such as when the MK was at
boarding school, he made his presence felt in letters and through other
communications. God, as the ideal father, promises in both the Old and
New Testaments that he will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy
31:6 and Hebrews 13:5). In John 14 and other passages the Holy Spirit is
described as always available to us.

2.

Provision

Parents care for and provide what the child needs, not just for physical

needs. God is described as one who will provide for financial needs
(Hebrews 13:4, 5), for physical needs (Philippians 4:19), and for spiritual
needs (II Peter 1:3). The Psalms emphasize that God is available to
provide for our relational and emotional needs.

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3.

Potency

Parents (fathers) show that they have authority and power by making

rules and enforcing them. They demonstrate that they are in charge and are
worthy of respect. In Deuteronomy 31:6, in Psalm 91, and in other
passages, God is presented as a model of being in charge, and that we can
trust in God because he is loving and will give us what is best. We are
reminded of this in the often-quoted Romans 8:28, which says that God
"works all things together . . . ."

4.

Permission

Parents give children permission to express feelings openly and

clearly in age-appropriate ways, and to try new things and take risks.
Encouraging a child to climb a tree, to cross the street alone, to drive a car,
and to express feelings are all examples of behaviors which need to be
guided as to their appropriateness in regard to age and content or style of
expression. Throughout Scripture we are encouraged, both by modeling
(John 11:35 and Psalm 103) and by direct command (Ephesians 4:15, 25)
to express ourselves truthfully. At the same time, God's potency is
promised when laws are violated.

5.

Protection

The parent provides a shield of protection, either by physical presence

or by giving advice, by toughness in applying consequences, or by denying
permission when a child is about to engage in an activity which will be
dangerous or potentially harmful. As the ideal father, God also models this
quality of protection. From the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy to the
protection described in Psalm 91, God's intervention is evident in the lives
of his children. In the New Testament, the Father's protection through the
Spirit's presence, guidance, prohibitions, and consequences is also evident.

The Father as Part of the Family System

At this point, it might appear that the father, by himself, is the most

significant figure in the life of the developing child. However, the father
never acts alone, but is part of a much larger interacting system. Not only
does the father influence the child, but the relationships in the family--
between father and mother, between parents and children, between siblings,

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and between the personal characteristics of each member of the family in a
reciprocal way with every other member--also influence the child. There
is an interplay of numerous factors. For example, while fathers have an
effect on parent-child relationships, it is also true that the characteristics of
each child affect their fathers (as well as mothers) and how the parents as
individuals and as a team respond to the child. Characteristics of the father
impact the way the parents get along with each other, and that marital
relationship also affects the development of the child.

Summary

Fathers are very important in the lives of MKs, though the specific

ways in which fathers affect their children vary greatly. Some result in
disastrous situations; others produce great blessing and have positive
impact for everyone in the family. Most are characterized by a mixture of
good and bad, joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure. In other words, both
positive and negative outcomes occur in all family situations. In this
chapter, we have described the role of the father in the lives of missionary
children and have shown how God as father can be a model for human
fathers. At the same time, we recognize that human fathers will never
attain the ideal of the perfect father.

As missionary fathers are aware of the significant impact their

interactions have on their children--emotionally, cognitively, physically,
socially, and spiritually--they may better understand the importance of
learning from and shaping their parental styles according to the model of
the Father of All, our heavenly Father. May that be the focus of each
missionary dad.

Adapted from a presentation at the 1997 "Mental Health and Missions"
conference.

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23.

Preschool Curriculum:
Structure and Wonder

Diane Lilleberg

Sometimes it is a phone call. What curriculum do you have for

preschool? Sometimes it is a letter. Please send us your preschool curric-
ulum. I consider these requests from two perspectives.

As a parent, I admire the request for preschool curriculum. I remember
preschool! I remember vividly enough to wonder how anyone with
preschoolers can be asking for anything more to do. As a teacher, I
appreciate the request for preschool curriculum. I know it comes from a
sincere desire to prepare children adequately to do well in school and to
meet upcoming life experiences.

Philosophy of Curriculum

But what is "curriculum"? In my graduate work in curriculum,

defining it was the first order of business. And everyone defines it
differently. For the preschool curriculum outlined in this article, curriculum
is defined as "making the most of every opportunity."

The "teaching" role of parenting preschool children isn't just about

formal structure and right and wrong ways of doing things. The world is
full of wonder for your little ones, and rightfully so. We should consider
their wonder before we impose our structure.

Curriculum is too often thought of in terms of skills, but it is so much

more. Skills such as reading and computation are important to bring order
and meaning to the world. Skills give us the ability to effectively share that
order and meaning with one another. My philosophy of education includes
the belief that the order and meaning should point children to God through:

· encouraging awe in considering creation (science)

· respect for self and others that includes consideration of both our

similarities and our uniqueness (social studies)

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· opportunities to respond to our Creator through our created talents

and the experiences God allows in our lives (the arts and service).

As you consider the last one, remember that even the youngest child gives
to us by refreshing our "wonder-view" of the world. Children benefit from
knowing that they are special and can give back to us. They deserve to
understand that and to hear our gratitude expressed.

Philosophy in Practice

The above is background, the philosophy of curriculum. When you are

busy, never quite able to get ahead, and find school to be approaching at an
alarming pace, philosophy can and will feel empty without practical
application.

This "curriculum outline" includes ideas adapted from a parent

workshop I used to do on preparing children for formal kindergarten in the
U.S. I have tried for a balanced approach from both a parent's perspective
(wanting to prepare a child) and a teacher's perspective (noticing what is
really effective preparation). I have also tried to consider the range of
settings in which you readers find yourselves. I hope the following will
both inspire (I can do that!) and reassure you (I am doing a lot of things
right without formal, structured help!). I also hope that the encouragement
toward structure is balanced with the encouragement of wonder.

1. Expand vocabulary while your children are underfoot

. Talk

about everything you do. Think about the limitless possibilities as your
toddler "helps" you make the bed. Together you can experience sheet,
blanket, pillow, tuck, fold, pull, wrinkle, smooth, top, bottom, head, foot,
side . . . and on and on. I love the expression, "bathe them in language."

2. Learn to ask your preschool children questions that demand

more than one-word answers.

Don't fall into the "Did you have fun?"

habit. Instead ask, "What did you do outside?" Or, "Tell me about
something you saw today that you never noticed before." Then listen.
Perhaps you can prove you are listening by restating in a slightly different
manner what your children say. For instance, if they mention seeing
something "different," you can respond that it was indeed "unusual." Or if
they tell you the flower is "pretty," you can agree that it is "beautiful."

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3. Make every trip a field trip.

When you go on errands, talk to

your children about what you are doing and what happens in the places you
go. Compare what happens in your current location, other locations your
children remember, and those they might not remember but need to know.

As you stamp a letter, talk about why you need a stamp, where you

get a stamp, what happens to the money you pay for it, where you want the
letter to go, and how it might get there. If you aren't sure about all of it, say
so. It is wonderful for children to discover that adults need to learn, and
don't have all the answers.

You can even compare ways you might have to line up or queue at a

post office. One of my most memorable "parenting preschooler" moments
came when my son at age two first saw a post office line in the U.S. He
demanded (with volume) to know why the grown-ups wanted to play
choo-choo train. His question instilled wonder that balanced the structure
being imposed on some twenty people during the pre-Christmas mailing
rush!

4. Fill empty "waiting minutes."

Use times when your hands are

busy (those high "potential-to-whine" times) by encouraging recall of
general knowledge. Help your child learn body parts, colors, those most-
important position words (left, right, over, under), counting, their full
name, their birth date, some way of naming places they live, and so on. A
game sometimes helps. Ask them to bring you a red car. Then have them
put it under a chair, on a chair, or "zoom" it around the chair.

5. Learn to show rather than tell initial learning experiences.

After all the emphasis on talking, I now encourage you not to talk so much.
After you have told your child to look "under" something for the fifth time
and he still hasn't found it, take the time to show him under. Then see how
many other unders he can find. And while you are at it, review over and
save a lot of voice! Anything you seem to nag about should trigger the
question, "Have I ever shown them?" Have you demonstrated how to shut
a door without slamming it? How to put the books on the shelf? For
example, my family was discovering that my children needed a
demonstration on how to pet a dog! An earlier two-minute demo would
have eliminated many "Don't bug the dog" commands and frustration for

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all . . . especially the dog! What seems obvious to us may not be at all
obvious to a child.

6. Teach your child to listen.

Listening implies more then just

hearing. It involves actively and consciously attending for the purpose of
gaining meaning. Insist on attention and culturally appropriate body
language (i.e., eye and head position) when you are giving directions.

Do not get in the habit of repeating directions. This encourages lazy

listening. Ask first, "What did I just say that you remember?" And be a
good listening model. Provide opportunities for modeling through a family
activity, perhaps around the table at the evening meal. Ask what the best
part of the day was for each person. Then ask one child what someone else
said. Be sure you know as well!

7. As children mature, increase the directions you give for chores,

first to two-steps, then to three.

They don't all have to be related to the

chore, especially at first. You might say, "Empty the water out of this pail.
Put it back under the window when you are done. Make a funny face in the
window before you come back." Children who do not have a strong
inclination towards talking may benefit from repeating the directions
before they start. On the other hand, you might ask a child who continually
talks to try to remember to do everything without repeating it aloud. In
either case, when they return ask them what they did.

8. Recognize the value of play.

It is indeed a child's "work."

Children learn who they are, vent their feelings, and experiment with
relationships and ideas through play. Encourage creativity in play.
Creativity is valued in schooling, but the very nature of school demands
conformity soon enough. Share what you remember from your play at their
age. Give them room and suggestions to help them develop their
imagination while they have time and such a natural and comfortable
ability to wonder.

9. Establish appropriate literacy orientation (i.e., top to bottom,

left to right) and a sense of words during cuddly, comfortable story
time.

I am assuming that you read regularly to your children. If you do not,

developing a regular habit of sharing a reading experience is a necessary
first step. As you read, trace your finger under the words (smoothly rather
than word by word) to help your children develop directional orientation. It

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will also help them realize that you are getting meaning from the printed
words.

When you turn the page, have your child tell you which page you

should read next, the left or the right. Remember the obvious is not always
obvious. In a similar vein, when your child is first attempting to write, do
not be overly concerned about letter reversals. As you know, orientation in
print is learned and becomes habit with use. Even older children with a
strong literacy orientation will reverse when they are tired.

10. Encourage counting, classifying, and ordering throughout

your daily activities.

Children need to work with actual objects before

being required to use numerals to represent number. Setting the table,
pairing socks, sorting colors, and many games all give natural
opportunities to prepare them for the world of numbers.

11. Give children lots of hands-on experience with school tools.

Children are almost always familiar with crayons, pencils, and paper, but
benefit from more experience with scissors, glue, and paint. They need to
experiment with how much glue is enough and how much is too much.
They can learn brush painting with water on almost any hard surface
(Look, Dad, it disappears into thin air!) or finger painting with shaving
cream on the table (Look Mom, my hands are cleaner than when I started!)

Adults are often frustrated cutting with the scissors typically provided

for children. Invest in a pair of excellent quality children's scissors that will
work for either left or right hands. Cutting a piece of your hair is a good
quality test, but since children are natural mimes I don't recommend trying
this in front of them! Don't require frustrating tasks with any of these
tools. Just make them familiar friends.

12. Introduce your children to independent work habits.

Ask

them to follow a direction for an activity, and encourage them to wait for
approval until the task is completed. Be careful what you require during
this time. It should be age-appropriate and, as a parent, your concern
should be with effort and attitude rather than perfection.

13. Provide safety to risk learning something new.

Teach your

child that mistakes are acceptable and are a way to learn. Try to believe it
yourself and honestly share your mistakes and what you have learned from
them. Your safety to risk, along with your own vulnerability in not being

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perfect, may have an invaluable carry-over into school if you plan to teach
your children yourself. Growth involves honest and purposeful effort to
learn and to continue learning. The natural tendency to reward perfect
products diminishes the kind of safe environment that supports growth.

14. Prepare your children to stand for values and behaviors your

family considers important.

Every family has its own culture and value

system, and it is too easy to communicate that different means bad. As
your children grow and have opportunities for experiences outside your
family system, they are apt to bump into some conflicts. How you model a
response to those differences and how you help your children deal with
such conflicts deserves careful thought.

15. Consider your own journey, and talk about it with your

children.

Take time to "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds

. . . ." Then start early "talking about them when you sit at home and when
you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up" (Deut.
6). It won't get easier with "a better ability to understand." It is easier to
form habits before there are other opposing habits that restrict you.

16. Celebrate!

Celebrate much more than learning skills or reach-ing

developmental milestones. Celebrate learning and wonder. Celebrate how
your children endear themselves to you, how they contribute to your
ministry, the fresh perspective they give on what is important in the world,
and their examples of faith.

Celebration doesn't require anything fancy. Ask your little ones to

help with ideas. And record your celebrations. Don't let them lapse with
the baby book. I am so grateful that I wrote notes on the calendar, had
reason and opportunity to expand those notes as I wrote letters to extended
family, and that those letters were saved and are now available. Both the
celebrations and the record help children identify and celebrate who they
are when that becomes important to them.

If you choose to follow this preschool curriculum, remember we are

told to look to a child as an example of faith. Let your young children be
full of wonder. Learn from them as well as teaching them about your own
wonder and structure. Remember that relationship involves both giving and
receiving. Make the most of every opportunity. Give to your children who
you

are becoming and receive with celebration who they are becoming.

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Don't let anyone's curriculum (including this one) impose a structure that
limits the wonder of the possibilities open to you as you build your
relationship with your preschool children and prepare them for more
"formal" schooling.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission of Parents Teaching

Overseas

, February 1994.

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24.
Development: The Twig Is Bent

Wayne D. Lance

'Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclin'd.
Boastful and rough, your first son is a Squire;
The next a Tradesman, meek, and much a liar;
Tom struts a Soldier, open, bold, and brave;
Will sneaks a Scriv'ner, an exceeding knave.

Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, Epistle I

Introduction

It seems to be the rule rather than the exception that if you have more

than one child you will sooner or later find that each child learns and
behaves in different ways. Just when parents think they have found the
ideal approach for teaching a subject area or shaping behavior, along
comes the second or third child and the previously successful method falls
short of expectations.

As Pope suggests in his satirical poem, even a lifetime of experience

is insufficient to form accurate generalizations about the nature of human-
kind, except this one: that we are all different. This insight into human
behavior is nothing new; yet we often respond to children as if we expect
them all to be the same.

Individual Differences

A Panorama of Differences

Most descriptions of individual differences stake out a position at the

beginning and move on from there. If I come at it from the viewpoint of
cognitive psychology, I can review the theories and research about intell-
igence, looking at the "g factor" (general factor of mental ability), along
with the newer theories of multiple intelligences, and then try to determine
how best to intervene based on these theories and findings.

Or, I can look at styles of learning and understanding, paying little

attention to intelligence or IQ per se. This learning-style perspective has

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led educators to adopt methodologies along a broad continuum. They range
from almost totally individualized learning experiences tailored to various
learning styles, to integrated approaches that attempt to provide
"brain-based learning" with the learning group as the vehicle for linking
information and understanding.

Temperament, Type, Style, and Intelligence

One has only to study the lives of Old and New Testament characters

to realize that people have differed in temperament and abilities from the
beginning of time. Add to this the lessons from the Epistles about differing
spiritual gifts, and we can only conclude God never intended that we all
react and learn in the same way. One of the joys of parenthood is discover-
ing the uniqueness of each child.

Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas, professors of psychiatry at New

York Medical Center, are well known and respected for their research and
writings in child development. Relying on numerous studies, they have
documented how babies are different from birth in nine categories,
including factors such as activity level, rhythmicity, approach or
withdrawal, adaptability, sensory threshold, quality of mood, intensity of
reactions, distractibility, and persistence and attention span. They also
found decided differences in temperament at an early age.

The differences detectable in infancy continue into childhood,

adolescence, and the adult years. There is consistency over time, although
other psychological attributes such as intellectual competence, adaptive
mechanisms, social and cultural patterns, and imposed or learned value
systems have their influence.

It is not only the uniqueness of each child that should interest us, but

also our styles as parents. Early on in the parenting experience we observe
how Mom's style of parenting differs from Dad's, and the consequences
are seen in the way a child responds differently to each parent. Our
expectations for our children are shaped by our own unique selves.
Learning to be a good parent requires an understanding of our own
temperament, style, and cognitive profile. The parent who also serves as
the child's teacher adds another dimension to the grid through which
children can be understood.

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The topic is complex and controversial, but it is important to learn as

much as possible about our children and their God-given individuality.

Multiple Intelligences

As the number of family members increases, parents never cease to be

amazed at the diversity of temperaments, personality types, talents, and
abilities that emerge. Here we will focus on the cognitive aspects of
variance, using the relatively new theory of multiple intelligences.

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Many of us agree that the older stereotypical concept of intelligence

is too constricted. We tend to reject the notion that "intelligence" can be
objectively measured and summed up in a single score called "IQ." Our
personal life experiences suggest that such things as common sense, intui-
tion, creativity, and social awareness are all a part of higher-order
functioning, or intelligence. We recognize that the mental power to manip-
ulate symbols is only one aspect of intelligence.

The theory of multiple intelligences, developed by Howard Gardner,

offers a broader framework than the traditional model of intelligence. This
theory is one way to view our children for the purpose of adapting methods
of instruction to their individual needs at the cognitive level.

Howard Gardner challenges the notion of a single intelligence that can

be assessed by a paper-and-pencil test. Going back ten or eleven years,
Professor Gardner developed his theory of multiple intelligences. Since that
time, many educators have used this theory as a basis for constructing new
strategies for approaching curriculum.

The problem lies less in the technology of testing than in the ways we

customarily think about the intellect and in our ingrained view of
intelligence. Only if we expand and formulate our view of what counts as
human intellect will we be able to devise more appropriate ways of
assessing it and more effective ways of educating it.

One reason children behave and learn in so many different ways is

that they have different combinations of intelligences, different capacities

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for solving problems and fashioning products. The prevailing notion of a
single intelligence often closes the door to making a breakthrough when a
child apparently has low aptitude for learning a subject as measured by
traditional means. But when that same child is viewed as having different
combinations of intelligences, the closed door may begin to open.

Seven Intelligences

Gardner groups capabilities (some people might call them aptitudes or

talents) into seven categories. It helpful to think of them functionally --
how these intelligences actually work in people's lives, not as isolated
capabilities, but working in concert.

Linguistic:

Using words effectively, orally (storyteller, orator,

politician) or in writing (poet, playwright, editor, journalist); manipulating
the syntax, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics of language.

Logical-Mathematical:

Using numbers effectively (mathematician,

tax accountant, statistician) and reasoning well (scientist, computer pro-
grammer, logician); showing sensitivity to logical patterns, relationships,
and other related abstractions; demonstrating aptness in using processes of
categorization, classification, inference, generalization, calculation, and
hypothesis testing.

Spatial:

Perceiving the visual-spatial world accurately (hunter, scout,

guide) and performing transformations upon those perceptions (interior
decorator, architect, artist, inventor); being sensitive to color, line, shape,
form, space, and the relationships that exist between these elements;
exhibiting the ability to visualize, to represent visual or spatial ideas
graphically, and to orient oneself appropriately in a spatial matrix.

Bodily-Kinesthetic:

Displaying expertise in using one's whole body

to express ideas and feelings (actor, mime, athlete, dancer) and in using
one's hands to produce or transform things (craftsperson, sculptor,
mechanic, surgeon); possessing specific physical skills such as
coordination, balance, dexterity, strength, flexibility, and speed, as well as
proprioceptivity (sensitive to own movements), and tactile capacities.

Musical:

Perceiving (music aficionado), discriminating (music

critic), transforming (composer), and expressing (performer) musical

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forms; displaying sensitivity to the rhythm, pitch, and timbre of a musical
piece; having a figural or "top-down"understanding of music (global,
intuitive), a formal or "bottom-up" understanding (analytic, technical), or
both.

Interpersonal:

Perceiving and making distinctions in the moods,

intentions, motivations, and feelings of other people; showing sensitivity to
facial expression, voice, and gesture; discriminating among many different
kinds of interpersonal cues; responding effectively to those cues in some
pragmatic way (influencing a group of people to follow a certain line of
action).

Intrapersonal:

Showing evidence of self-knowledge and acting

adaptively on the basis of that knowledge; having an accurate picture of
oneself (strengths and limitations); exhibiting an awareness of inner
moods, intentions, motivations, temperaments, and desires; and possessing
the capacity for self-discipline, self-understanding, and self-esteem.

Relationships Among Intelligences

: I find it helpful in

understanding the relationships among these seven intelligences to view
them in three general categories: (1) temporal (time and sequence); (2)
spatial (space and place); and (3) personal elements of the problems we
face (personal and social awareness).

Linguistic, musical, and logical-mathematical intelligences involve the

ability to process and communicate temporal and sequential information.
Spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences focus on the ability to
understand the nature of space and our place in it. Intrapersonal and
interpersonal intelligences focus on our sense of self and how we relate to
others.

People are often surprised to find personal elements (intrapersonal

and interpersonal intelligences) included as intelligences, but those
capabilities are as important for success in life as the first two categories.
Yet we often limit our assessment of intelligence to the first category--the
linguistic and logical-mathematical.

Identifying Multiple Intelligences

One reason the traditional model of defining and measuring intelli-

gence has held such prominence in education over the years is the relative

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ease with which a test can be administered and scored. There seems to be
some comfort in following a pattern for administering tests, and a set of
rules for scoring and obtaining the final result. It all seems so "scientific"
and "objective." Don't expect to find precise and standardized
paper-and-pencil tests for assessing multiple intelligences.

This lack of precision in developing a profile of a child's multiple

intelligences is one reason some people find it difficult to carry out research
and document validity with Gardner's theory. The lack of standardized
measuring instruments is not viewed as a problem, however, by most
educators applying the theory. In actual practice, simple observation is the
best tool for assessing children's multiple intelligences. Gardner believes
children begin to show proclivities or inclinations in specific intelligences
at an early age, and for this reason I believe parents are especially suited to
make valid observations.

If a parent or teacher feels more structure is required in developing a

multiple-intelligences profile, Thomas Armstrong has developed a
checklist or inventory (not a test) based on the seven kinds of learning
styles that grew out of the theory of multiple intelligences. Knowing that
most students have strengths in several areas, the inventory is used to
obtain an informal but helpful profile showing the child's individual
proclivities.

As a parent, you have access to a wealth of information to gain an

understanding of your children's learning styles. Think about hobbies and
special interests, how they spend their free time, and how they read their
stories. Look at their pictures and sketches. Review their scrapbooks,
videotapes, audiocassettes, and photographs for further clues.

Armstrong has an interesting approach for identifying students'

intelligences:

I've often humorously suggested to teachers that one good

way to identify students' most highly developed intelligences is
to observe how they misbehave in class. The strongly linguistic
student will be talking out of turn, the highly spatial student will
be doodling and daydreaming, the interpersonally inclined
student will be socializing, the bodily-kinesthetic student will be
fidgeting, and so forth. These students are metaphorically saying

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through their misbehaviors: "This is how I learn, teacher, and if
you don't teach me through my most natural learning channels,
guess what? I'm going to do it anyway." These
intelligence-specific misbehaviors, then, are diagnostic
indicators of how students need to be taught. (Multiple Intel-
ligences in the Classroom

, p.28)

Key Points in MI Theory

In developing his theory, Gardner established criteria (or certain basic

"tests") that each intelligence had to meet in order to be included. The
factors he considered included: research with individuals suffering from
damage to known areas of the brain; the existence of savants, prodigies,
and other exceptional individuals; developmental histories of exceptional
individuals; support from psychometric and experimental findings;
identification of a set of operations indigenous to the intelligence under
question; and susceptibility of the intelligence to being encoded in a
symbol system.

In understanding Gardner's theory, it is important to keep in mind

these key points:

·

Each person possesses all seven intelligences

·

Most people can develop each intelligence to an adequate level

of competency

·

Intelligences usually work together in complex ways

·

There are many ways to be intelligent within each category.

Applying the Theory of Multiple Intelligences

When used as an infrastructure, the theory of multiple intelligences

can guide parents in developing a framework for helping children engage
more fully and effectively in learning.

In much the same way classroom teachers find it easy to fall into a

pattern of teaching primarily by talking (giving instructions and lecturing),
parent-teachers find it easy to overuse the technique of having children
respond to written directives in workbooks and worksheets. While these
linguistic and logical techniques are sometimes appropriate, they may not

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always be the best method for taking full advantage of children's natural
bent for learning--nor do they always lead to maximal development of
children's spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intra-
personal intelligences.

Parents may find the following suggestions useful in applying the

theory of multiple intelligences to home-teaching situations. Not only will a
variation in methods enhance learning opportunities for your children, but
you will also find your own enthusiasm for teaching increasing as your
creative juices begin to flow.

Shift the method of presentation.

Analyze the way you present

material to your children. If you find you are overemphasizing one or two
areas to the exclusion of others, branch out. Most of us are apt to make use
of linguistic-centered presentations (books and tapes for example) and
probably logical-mathematical materials (calculators, manipulatives), but
we less often use other forms of presenting material.

Other methods of presentation might include: spatial (mind-mapping,

art activities, graphs, maps, LEGO sets, cameras); bodily-kinesthetic
(drama, dance, tactile activities, building tools, clay); musical (songs that
teach, musical instruments); interpersonal (cooperative learning, peer
tutoring, simulations, board games, role playing); or intrapersonal
(journals, independent study, options in a course of study, self-esteem
building).

Adapt lesson plans, units, and themes to address each child's

strongest intelligences.

Ask: How can I translate the material to be taught

from one intelligence to another? If you have a child with a decided
strength in bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, for example, look at the material
to be learned in terms of how you can involve the whole body in learning
and how you might use hands-on experiences.

You may be using the same theme or unit with all your children, but

you can adapt to meet individual differences in intelligences. Is there a way
to build on the strengths your child has in the area of interpersonal
intelligence by building in more cooperative and peer-sharing activities?
Think about the child with a highly developed spatial intelligence--are any
activities specifically appropriate for him or her?

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Use teaching strategies befitting various intelligences.

Armstrong

lists and discusses 35 teaching strategies, five for each of the seven
intelligences. Space does not allow listing them all here, so one example for
each is provided. You can probably think of a number of other ways to
develop each one, remembering you do not want to teach only to each
child's strengths, but also to give practice using his or her less developed
areas.

A Linguistic Strategy:

Storytelling. Weave important concepts and

ideas into a story you tell directly to your child. If you are teaching
percentages, make up a story about a family where each member eats 10%
more food than the next younger member of the family. Once your children
get the idea that storytelling can be used with any area of the curriculum,
they will begin to create their own stories.

A Logical-Mathematical Strategy:

Classification and categorization.

In a unit on communication, list various means of communicating feelings,
then classify them according to mode of communication (linguistic,
kinesthetic, artistic, etc.).

A Spatial Strategy:

Graphic Symbols. Create a time line for a

particular unit being studied and have children create symbols to represent
various events (wars, births, deaths).

A Bodily-Kinesthetic Strategy:

Body Maps. Use the body as a

reference point or map for specific knowledge. For example, in learning
about the locations of countries in Africa, the head can represent North
Africa, the feet, South Africa, with individual countries located
accordingly.

A Musical Strategy:

Rhythms, Songs, and Chants. Put the main

points of what you are teaching into a rhythmic format. This can be done to
learn spelling words, the multiplication tables or Bible verses.

An Interpersonal Strategy:

Simulations. Have a group create an

"as-if" environment. If you are preparing to return to your home country,
have them begin acting as if they were meeting cousins in a big city for the
first time.

An Intrapersonal Strategy:

Feeling-toned Moments. Begin by

modeling emotions as you teach and then encourage your children to do so.
In studying about President Lincoln, read the Gettysburg Address with

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feeling. After discussing the emotions evoked by this speech, have each
child read a portion of it with the feeling Lincoln must have conveyed.

Maximize the learning environment.

Your classroom may be the

dining room table, a corner of a bedroom, or a space under the shade of a
tree--not exactly the typical classroom! Nevertheless, you can give some
thought to how you can arrange this environment to accommodate the
needs of children who learn in different ways.

To begin with, you might look at time. How is your time structured?

Do children have opportunity to work on long-term projects without always
being interrupted to go on with the next subject? Is the sequence of
activities and the time of day compatible with each child's bent for
maximum involvement? Is there some consistency, as opposed to a sense
of chaos?

How about spatial arrangements? Are all activities to be carried out at

a desk or table? Have your children learned to study and do projects in a
variety of settings, especially settings suited to both the activity and the
child's style of learning? Are tactile, manipulative, and other hands-on
materials accessible for easy use?

Does the auditory environment promote learning? Is there a way to

reduce disturbing background noises? Does your voice vary in intensity,
inflection, and emphasis, or do you tend to use a monotone quality?

If you have two or more children, are they working in isolation, or are

they learning to work together on some lessons, even if there is quite an age
difference? Do they know how you expect them to resolve conflicts? Are
the children exposed to experiences designed to promote self-concept? Are
they given opportunity and encouraged to share feelings? Are they given
appropriate choices?

Most of what we have been discussing about multiple intelligences is

based on a theoretical framework without a great deal of hard research data
to support the theory. However, the educational literature is replete with
anecdotal reports and articles indicating that numerous schools are finding
the theory to be of practical value.

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Learning Styles

Having discussed individual differences from a cognitive frame of

reference, I turn now to styles of learning. Whereas the theory of multiple
intelligences focuses on capabilities or aptitudes, a learning styles approach
is more centered on how a learner interprets his or her world.

These views of how we learn are not competing theories or concepts,

but complementary ones. At the risk of oversimplifying, I suggest that
studying our children through a grid of multiple intelligences helps us map
their broad range of abilities and understand how they process information;
studying them through a grid of learning styles helps us characterize the
way they learn and what tends to motivate them.

There are numerous ways to approach and describe learning styles.

Some models approach them through personality types (such as assessed
by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). Other models look more at
environmental preferences, while still others focus more on modalities and
learning strategies. A few models are really a blend of all of the above.

Of particular interest to Christian parents are models of learning

styles based on or derived from biblical principles. Rebecca Metzger
utilizes a three-dimensional model based on I John 1:2, seeing or
perceiving information, bearing witness or internalizing information, and
proclaiming or retrieving the material in appropriate circumstances. In
utilizing this model, Metzger provides inventories to assess learning styles
(visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and mixed), processing styles (intuitive,
analytical, and mixed), and personality styles (ruler, promoter, designer,
and server). The assessment phase is followed by the selection of curricula
and teaching methods consistent with the various styles.

Ray Moody relates four styles of learning to virtues: innovative to

love, analytic to wisdom, common sense to justice, and dynamic to courage.
He also shows the links between styles and spiritual gifts. For each style he
describes how to recognize individuals with this style, how they make
decisions, what they tend to like and dislike, how they are motivated, as
well as positive and negative considerations for each style.

For a description of specific styles, one author is helpful in integrating

several models so that they translate into guidelines for teaching to
individual differences.

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A Blend of Theories

Cynthia Ulrich Tobias, founder and president of Learning Styles

Unlimited, pulls from several models to assist parents and teachers in
recognizing, identifying, and working with various strengths and
preferences. To help parents and teachers utilize the concept of learning
styles, she presents several fundamental principles, including this very
important one: use labels in a positive manner to understand, not to
analyze. And remember that styles are value neutral, that is, no style is
better than another. It is also important to remember that while each of us
probably has a dominant style, we no doubt have characteristics and
attributes from each of the styles.

Tobias makes another point we need to remember as we try to

understand how our children learn: "I understood early on that to
communicate effectively with all my students, the process resembled
learning foreign languages. Although I may never master the art of thinking
in another style, I can use words that connect with the design of another's
mind."

The more we are able to see and understand the unique style of each

of our children and to better understand our own learning style, the greater
the probability of communicating with our children and motivating them to
achieve their God-given potential.

Dominant Styles

Drawing upon the work of Anthony Gregorc, Tobias discusses

perception (the way we take in information) and ordering (the way we use
the information we perceive). People tend to perceive information both
concretely and abstractly, but usually one way of perceiving is more
dominant than the other. After taking in information, people tend to order it
sequentially or randomly, and again, one is way usually dominant over the
other.

Putting these together, Tobias presents four combinations as ways to

describe learning styles. She also presents lists of words often used to
characterize each style.

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Concrete Sequential

Abstract Sequential

Key Word: Facts

Key Words: Underlying Principles

hardworking

analytic

accurate

knowledgeable

dependable

structured

factual

deliberate

conventional

objective

stable

thorough

consistent

logical

organized

systematic

Concrete Random

Abstract Random

Key Words: Compelling Reasons Key Words: Personal Relevance

quick

sensitive

curious

perceptive

creative

idealistic

instinctive

spontaneous

intuitive

compassionate

realistic

imaginative

innovative

sentimental

adventurous

flexible

In order to get a better grasp on each of these four styles, Tobias

provides information on what individuals in each group tend to do best,
what makes the most sense to them, what's hard for them, and finally, what
questions they ask when learning.

Layered upon this description of the four styles, Tobias adds other

ways of viewing individual differences. These include environmental
preferences for concentration (designing the ideal study environment),
ways of remembering information (learning strategies), and varying ways
we tend to understand material (methods and study skills).

Concentrating

Drawing upon the research of Kenneth and Rita Dunn, Tobias makes

a strong case for attending to the learning environment when attempting to

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provide an optimal educational program for children. Children (and adults
too) demonstrate preferences for where they study and for various
characteristics of the learning environment.

It may surprise you that not every person prefers and performs to their

maximum in an orderly, quiet, well-lit room, free from all distractions.
Some people actually do better without silence and solitude. They seem to
need noise to keep from being distracted.

I like lots of bright light when I study, but I recall colleagues who

worked best in a room with lights so soft that I could hardly see! When
they came into my brightly-lit office, they found it very distracting.

The temperature of the study area can be an important factor, too. I

am always amazed at how different members of the same family can vary
in their reaction to heat and cold.

Some children occasionally need to eat and drink something in order

to keep their minds focused on their lessons. The time of day can also be
critical. We are not all "morning people," nor do we all come to life in the
evening. When setting up a schedule to teach our children, we may forget
that children also have their own internal time clocks.

Remembering

Differences in the way we use our memory are also important factors

to consider, according to researchers Walter Barbe and Raymond
Swassing. Tobias explains their findings about sensory perception in
terms of modalities: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.

The auditory learner needs to hear himself say something in order to

remember it, while the visual learner needs to see it, and the kinesthetic
learner does best when physical activity is involved. For some people,
verbal instructions are easy to remember; for others, visual representation
is needed. In order for a kinesthetic youngster to remember your
instructions, he or she may need to physically walk or move through an
activity.

Understanding

Relying upon the work of Herman Witkin, Tobias uses the terms

analytic and global. The analytic learner tends to like things in an orderly

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step-by-step sequence, while the global person is more apt to see the big
picture. Analytic types like details, organization, consistency, and doing
one thing at a time. Global types like to be flexible, go with the flow, and
be involved in discussion and group efforts.

This dimension of learning is very important because it relates to how

children pay attention (or don't), how they follow directions, and how they
organize and manage their time. It is equally important for teaching parents
to recognize their own approach to understanding. An analytic parent can
be driven crazy by a global child (and visa versa!) if no attempt is made to
accommodate to these differences.

A Caveat

People do not fit into neat little boxes. Few, if any, people are totally

concrete random, with preferences for concentrating, remembering, and
understanding that can be accurately labeled with only one term for each
preference. We are complex beings. However, we can benefit by looking at
various models of learning styles. Then, through careful observation of
ourselves and our children, we can determine dominant styles and prefer-
ences and arrange our teaching methods and learning environment
accordingly.

Assessing Learning Styles

While researchers have developed formal checklists and assessment

instruments, Tobias believes much can be learned through informal
processes of observing, listening, and experimenting. She suggests that
parents observe patterns of behavior, listen to the way a child
communicates, and experiment with what works and what doesn't work for
each particular child.

In her chapters about dominant styles, Tobias provides descriptive

information to assist in applying these three processes. It is helpful to have
a copy of her book; however, I believe it is possible to gain a fairly
accurate portrait of a child's dominant style by seeing how he or she
matches up with the list of words used to characterize each style.

When making an informal assessment of a child's dominant style,

Tobias suggests focusing more on natural strengths rather than on
weaknesses. She believes strengths provide a much better foundation for

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learning than attempting to improve areas of weakness. To help parents
become better observers and listeners, she encourages them to try to learn
all they can about learning styles in general and about each child's style in
particular.

For parents desiring more formal checklists, you may be interested in

a publication by Alta Vista College (see Resources). Two surveys are
included in this publication: one for the younger student and one for adults
and older students. Results from the use of either of these surveys will
assist in obtaining a profile of temperament or style in the domains of
feeling, thinking, sensing, and intuiting.

Whether you use a checklist or simply spend time observing your

child, the important thing is to begin to understand the unique qualities that
make each of your children different from any other and then to welcome
and nurture that diversity. If you are a visually-oriented person, you may
want to prepare some sort of diagram or chart to indicate each child's
profile of styles and preferences for learning. I encourage you, while doing
this, to focus on your own styles and preferences in order to gain insight
into how your present teaching methods might enhance or detract from
what best "fits" each of your children.

Teaching to Learning Styles

Returning to the four combinations of perception and ordering as

described by Tobias, I will draw from her list of suggestions for teaching
(or "getting along with," as she puts it) each of the four dominant
combinations of learning styles.

Concrete Sequential

· Be consistent and organized in your approach.
· Use common sense.
· Remember that CSs have feelings even if they may not display their

feelings as often as others.

· Give advance notice of what you intend to do so CSs can prepare

themselves.

· Present step-by-step instructions and tell CSs what they should do

and what you expect.

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· Expect CSs to take responsibility for their actions and to pull their

own weight.

· Avoid dealing in generalities.

Abstract Sequential

· Have specific goals and communicate them clearly.
· Use logic and reasoning.
· Listen to what ASs have to say.
· Give ASs a job and then leave them alone and let them do it.
· Be complete, thorough, and deliberate.
· Keep issues factual.
· Give ASs time to research projects for the best approach.
· Make certain ASs understand the purpose of the project.
· Give time to think and research; don't expect an immediate response.

Abstract Random

· Give ARs the opportunity to help others.
· Give lots of feedback, both positive and negative.
· Be less serious.
· Avoid nitpicking.
· Remember ARs will get things done, even if not in the way you might

expect.

· Avoid putting ARs in the middle of a conflict.
· Allow ARs to be spontaneous
· Show appreciation.
· Avoid the tendency to mistake a happy exterior for lack of ability.
· Remember not all is written in stone.

Concrete Random

· Tell CRs "what," not "how."
· Point CRs in the right direction and then let them go.
· Be flexible.
· Tell CRs what they did right, not what they did wrong.
· Don't be threatened by enthusiasm.
· Keep CRs involved.

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· Maintain a sense of humor.
· Be open to change.

As you assess the ways in which each of your children is best able to

concentrate, think about how you can modify the learning environment
(your kitchen, bedroom, or eating area) if this seems desirable.

·

Does one child prefer subdued rather than bright light?

·

Is a private study area behind a divider better than being seated

around a table with other children?

·

Is one area of the home warmer or colder than another, and does

this make a difference for an individual child?

·

Does one of your youngsters do better with ear plugs and

another with earphones connected to a tape recorder playing
instrumental music?

·

Is a soft chair preferable to a straight, hard one?

·

What difference does time of day make in the ability to attend?

·

How does each child react to a snack before beginning a lesson

requiring close attention?

Finally, attend to factors that promote remembering, specifically

preferences in the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic areas. These aspects of
learning require you to reconsider the mode used in presenting material and
the way in which you encourage children to respond. Perhaps you are too
heavy on the visual mode of presentation as opposed to an auditory one. Or
do you typically expect your child to respond orally when a visual response
might be preferable? How many opportunities are provided for
manipulating objects or materials and for moving around during the
learning process?

Discovering and acting upon the unique attributes God has placed

within each of us is a challenge and an opportunity to learn more about
ourselves and our children. Rebecca Metzger, writing on this topic
expresses it this way: God knew each one of us before he formed us in the
womb of our mother (Jeremiah 1:5). He consecrated a plan for our lives
(Jeremiah 29:11). He designed and formed us in our mother's womb for his
glory to fulfill his plan in our lives (Psalms 139: 13-14). We are all created

Development: The Twig is Bent

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as individuals, but in the image of God. Therefore, just as God cannot be
placed in a box, neither can we.

Resources

Alta Vista College. Learning Styles and Tools. Madison, TN: Family

Christian Press)

Armstrong, Thomas. Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom.

(Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Devel-
opment, 1994).

Gardner, Howard. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple

Intelligences

. (NY: Basic Books, 1983).

Metzger, Rebecca S. Making the Most of Their Education. (Virginia

Beach, VA: Prudence Design Tutorial Programs, 1995).

Sylwester, Robert. A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator's Guide

to the Human Brain

. (Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and

Curriculum Development, 1995).

Tobias, Cynthia Ulrich. The Way They Learn. (Colorado Springs,

CO.: Focus on the Family, 1994).

Reprinted with permission from Parents Teaching Overseas,

August-December 1995

236

25.

Helping Students Develop:
Key Concepts

John R. Powell

"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will

not depart from it." Parents and school personnel who share in the devel-
opment of missionary children know well the challenge of this proverb!
The psalmist (Ps. 127) reminds us that children are a heritage of the Lord,
and compares parents to a bow from which children are sent forth as
arrows. School staff participating with parents in the MK's education and
development have many opportunities to influence the direction in which
the arrow flies. All must depend on God, the Archer, for wisdom and
guidance.

Many things go into producing desirable growth. The teaching of

knowledge, godly principles, and life skills contribute significantly. But the
personal qualities of staff also matter significantly. When asked by
MK-CART/CORE researchers to name the most desirable qualities for
boarding school personnel, individuals closest to the boarding school
experience (parents, former students, and school staff), assumed the
necessary technical and academic qualities, but put heavy emphasis on
personal characteristics. These included the ability to care in respectful
ways, integrate faith with subject matter and everyday life, show an
understanding of developmental principles, and be positive role models for
students.

In a recent missions-related workshop, we were asked to think about a

person who significantly influenced our development and share that with
someone nearby. The woman next to me, an adult MK who is now a
teacher, described one of her teachers. She detailed this teacher's faithful-
ness, love of God, tender concern for students, and deep sense of respect
and care for others. When she mentioned her name I exclaimed, "I know
her, too!" for those qualities had been present in our relationship as well.
As we celebrated this person's influence, I thought of the many students
who continue to benefit from having known her.

Helping Students Develop: Key Concepts

237

The experiences of relationship during school years are of crucial

importance. Their influence, positive or negative, can last a lifetime. God
has created us for relationships, and we grow and develop through them.
We wish to be listened to, understood, cared about, taken seriously. There
is no more important time for these yearnings to be met than during
childhood and adolescence. The staff member who responds with an under-
standing of relevant concepts and principles can be very helpful in a
student's growth.

Developmental Principles

Studies in developmental psychology lead to a series of principles for

understanding human development.

· Development is a continuous process.

Virtually every experience

in the major developmental years can contribute to one's development.
Positive and negative experiences are enfolded into this continuous
process. The nature and interpretation of these experiences by caring
adults help determine learning, personal characteristics, and behavior in the
student. The wise staff member is also aware of his or her own continuous
development, realizing that development takes place at virtually any stage
of maturity.

· Development is psycho-bio-social.

All aspects of humanity make

up and work together in development, including spiritual qualities and
understandings. While these areas develop at different rates and receive
emphasis at different times in development, they are intricately connected
and interactive. Close observation and patience is often called for in
assisting with them.

· Development is orderly.

Our created nature is such that normal

development moves in an orderly, sequential process when sufficient
supports and stimuli are present, although it may not always appear so. It
involves periods of acceleration in some areas while others are at plateaus
or may even temporarily regress. Certain events, experiences, and depri-
vations can alter this order and result in immaturity or pathology as the
person attempts to cope without adequate supports or teaching, thus learn-

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ing maladaptive responses. Given the proper input and stimulation, how-
ever, development is generally quite a trustworthy process.

· Development is cumulative. The completion of one develop-

mental task leads to another and must be successfully completed before
further development can occur in that area. A child must learn to crawl
before walking; know words, letters, and hand-eye motor coordination be-
fore writing; and acquire certain psychological and emotional skills before
successfully participating in friendship and intimacy. The observant staff
member who sees this principle at work will neither push too hard, nor
withhold the necessary instruction or encouragement when needed.

· Development is integrative.

The manifold areas of development,

while studied and understood separately (e.g., physical development, learn-
ing capacity, emotional development, moral development), integrate with
one another to create a whole greater than the sum of the parts. It is this
absolutely unique combination of successfully integrated areas which
makes a person an individual, and which can have delightful (though some-
times frustrating) manifestations at any age.

· Development is idiosyncratic.

Although there is much com-

monality among people with standardized norms for numerous develop-
mental areas, each person has an idiosyncratic developmental scheme and
process. One child may surpass another in physical coordination, while the
other quickly acquires cognitive reasoning ability. One may show great
ability to do several things at once; another may need to focus on single
projects. One may show a keen sensitivity to spiritual things while another
actively resists them. In the school years it is especially important to allow
for these idiosyncratic development processes, but understand them also in
a normative context.

· Development is complex. Made in God's image (Gen. 1 and 2),

we are infinitely complex. In developing from conception to maturity, the
complicated knitting and weaving of these intricate parts is sometimes
puzzling but always known to God (Ps. 139). Although we can understand
some aspects of this process we must also accept those aspects which are a
mystery to us while honoring and appreciating the person in whom they are
occurring.

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· Development involves critical periods.

As development occurs

there are windows of opportunity, or critical periods, in which certain
development must occur if it is to contribute optimally to the individual's
overall development. If the learning doesn't take place during this period, it
is more difficult to make up later and may retard other areas of devel-
opment dependent upon it. The learning and application of scriptural truths
also apply here, as clearly noted in the Apostle Paul's reference to "milk"
and "meat" regarding spiritual maturity, and in the Lord's gentle teaching
of Thomas as he worked through his doubts.

· Development can be modified by the environment.

This is

among the most important in the school setting. Development is augmented
by a facilitative environment and positive relationships, but may be
retarded or misdirected by non-facilitative or destructive elements. As
Romans 5:15 indicates, however, and as we see in the experience of
Joseph, adversity can also have long-range benefits. The school, however,
should not be a destructive environment, but a place where problems can
be redeemed or corrected. Even if development has been negatively
affected, modification and correction can occur through relationships, new
experiences, teaching, and other means of participation with the student.

Relational Concepts: Time, Talk, Trust

Successful development depends much on relationship. Building

relationships requires time. Listening, showing interest, and taking
initiative in shared activities and learning events communicates a sense of
caring and belonging for the student. Children can be observed changing
from a downcast expression to one of brightness just by being noticed,
listened to, and having time with a staff member. Consistency in sharing
time builds positive anticipation in students and contributes to security and
growth.

School personnel may also augment relationships with students by

taking time to build relationships with parents. Knowledge of the parents'
location, work, and ministry situation, and acquaintance with other family
members adds significantly to understanding a child. As applied in the
relationship, it assists staff to lead the MK in understanding and feeling
included in the ministry of his or her parents. Building parent relationships

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also creates easier access for significant discussion if concerns arise. It
helps create a better sense of shared responsibility and mutual perspective
for the student's growth.

Talk, meaning interactive communication, is also key to relationship

building. Most parents and boarding home parents know well the
importance of those "talks" occurring on arrival from classes, around the
dinner table, and at (or after!) bedtime. Sharing ideas, questions, and
lovingly hearing a student's "wonderings" builds important dimensions of
personality structure.

Talking with an actively listening adult facilitates an internal process

in the child which helps greatly in an understanding of self, others, God,
and the world. The tacit and informal learning in these experiences is every
bit as important as formal training.

Trust is the foundation of good relationships. The word itself shares

its wordstem with truth, underlining the importance of truthfulness in
relationship. Truthfulness builds trust. The Pauline phrase "speaking the
truth in love" (Eph. 4:15) adds the important connection of truth and love
in building up others. Truth and love are two sides of the same coin,
creating a wealth in life to be spent in building and enjoying trusting
relationships. The wise staff member knows that the student's heart
quickly experiences the equation , "My house parent is trustworthy; I feel
loved", and "I feel loved; I can trust." In turn, it builds not only rela-
tionship, but also helps develop secure and trustworthy character.

Trust requires both time and talk, and is more slowly built than

broken. Betrayals such as unkept promises, breaking of confidences, and
responding insensitively are all too common trust breakers. Results from
the recent Adult MK study by MK-CART/CORE show that MKs who
experience a sense of trust and inclusion in growing up, especially with
their parents, also experience a higher sense of spiritual well-being (in
specifically measured ways) than those who did not. Those who experience
betrayal or wounding such as in abusive situations, particularly from
persons close to them in whom trust is to be placed, show significantly
lower scores on spiritual well-being.

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Relational Processes: Recognition, Response, Redemption

Recognition is usually the beginning point for relationships. It means

being noticed as "being there" and means even more as particular facets of
qualities and behavior are noted and appreciated. Children should be in the
process of building a "store" of good memories and experiences --positive
recognitions--which, as they accumulate, become a part one's
self-awareness, understanding, and strength. Because the need for recog-
nition is so strong, students who do not receive it positively in sufficient
quantities often develop creative but self-defeating ways of receiving it.

Effective recognition is both subtle and obvious. It can be shown in

such ways as exchanging pleasant greetings, being invited into an ongoing
conversation or activity, or finding something special left for you when
returning to an empty room or house. It is shown as the almost unconscious
opening of a circle of people to include one as he or she approaches, or in
incidentals which are affirming. Helpful recognition can be shown in
joining emotionally with a student in the excitement of an experience ("I
scored the winning goal in soccer today!") or an anticipated event ("My
parents are coming to see me next weekend.") or in a hurt or
disappointment. These are also examples of the meaning of "ministering
grace according to the needs of the moment" (Eph. 4:29, New American
Standard version).

Noting specific and unique attributes or needs can speak powerfully to

the legitimate need for recognition. One adolescent MK said "I always like
the gifts my sister gives me; she knows exactly what I like!" For a child to
know another person has seen a particular quality, preference or need, and
has acknowledged it, has an edifying effect on development.

Acknowledgment for achievements, contributions, or success is also

important recognition. Rituals are very important for noting passages or
transitions such as birthdays, leaving for vacation and special individual
experiences. The wisely operated boarding home is one which has
traditions and rituals and observes them faithfully so students can both
anticipate and enjoy recognition through them.

Recognition paves the way for response. How one responds to what is

recognized or identified in a student lays the groundwork for responsive
interaction. This, in turn, builds solid and deeper relationships. The fullness

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of relationship, within the framework of teaching, caring, planning,
disciplining, cooperating, initiating, and through staff roles and responsi-
bilities, is lived out in this responsive exchange. The individual manner in
which these are carried out in relationship to a student is powerfully influ-
ential. It is the impact of these personal characteristics, reflected in a staff
members relationship with a student, which can have a lasting effect on
development.

Redemption is a critically important aspect of relationships. Mean-

ingful relationships do not escape misunderstanding or conflict. When
these occur, there is a loss, however small, of something in the relationship.
It is important that conflict be redeemed if the relationship is to continue at
its fullest. These occasions, while sometimes painful, may be opportunities
for teaching about our ultimate redemption in Christ, since this small
human interaction could well have the components of grace, forgiveness
and restoration parallel with that magnificent grace, forgiveness and
restoration given us through Christ.

When a student has acted wrongly, needs correction or is developing a

pattern of unhealthiness and sin, it needs to be acknowledged clearly but
sensitively. Galatians tells us that "...you who are spiritual, restore such a
one gently, lest you also be tempted (Gal. 6.1 NAS). A simple misunder-
standing or unintended hurt may mean just clarifying the situation by
discussion and reassuring the student that the relationship is intact. Or it
may mean deeper discussion and forgiveness. In such times the staff
member needs to be aware of his or her own vulnerability to temptation or
wrongdoing as a reminder to be gentle, fair, truthful and forgiving. These
are salient opportunities for showing grace and giving a student both
experiential and scriptural understanding of God's forgiveness and
redemption in Christ.

Discipline is also a necessary part of helping students experience

interpersonal redemption. Discipline is too often equated with punishment
(especially in the minds of students) while, in fact, discipline is an almost
continuous practice in a healthy school or boarding home environment. In
this sense, discipline means a way of viewing or understanding the world. It
means to follow a certain method in understanding things (such as in the
disciplines of chemistry, or of anthropology), just as being a disciple means
to follow a certain person. Discipline, then, means instruction, learning and

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shaping for the student--imparting an understanding and a consistent way
of pursuing knowledge, competency and viewing the world. It means
consistency in behavior and following a certain standard with integrity. In
an MK school, an undergirding discipline--that of God's perspective--
should be in the warp and woof of everyday life. Punishment, important as
a means of teaching the consequences of certain behaviors, then becomes
only a small part of a greater discipline. When applied in its broad sense,
and lovingly lived out, it brings consistency, predictability, security and
confidence.

Outcome Concepts:
Conscience, Confidence, Competence and Character

A hoped for outcome of the school experience is that the student

emerges with godly character and the competencies for continuing
successfully in his or her development with happiness and satisfaction.
Attendant to these are the internal qualities of conscience and confidence.
Conscience is built through an understanding of the precepts of Scripture
and the examples of integrity and application of them in relationships.
Confidence is built by realistic encouragement, security in relationships
and a sense of inclusion and belonging.

Conscience and confidence become strong anchors in the building of

character which, rooted and grounded in Christ, is a stable, lifelong quality.
Competencies are built through direct teaching, studying, hands-on
experiences and participation in relationship. These include technical,
intellectual, and academic knowledge and skills important for further
education and career development, but also those internal skills and
understandings so necessary to engage joyfully and responsibly in mature
relationships and self-understanding.

The staff member who has participated in helping the student develop

these as outcomes of the school experience can deservedly feel a sense of
satisfaction, hope for the student's future, and perhaps a deep sense of
gratitude for participation in this process. And the "arrow" thus sent forth
will find its mark in the joy and satisfaction of the Lord through whatever
path its flight through life takes.

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Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from World Report,

September/October 1997.

Part V:

Educational
Issues

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Resolution IV

Culturally Sensitive Education

Whereas most educational systems and family services in an
MK's country of citizenship are designed to help people function
well as citizens of that county, and

Whereas the MK community has become increasingly diversified
culturally and nationally, and

Whereas it is not practical to develop separate educational
programs which seek to duplicate the educational systems of
every nationality working in a geographic region,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi commit themselves to continue
pursuing creative ways to adapt and supplement programs to
meet the educational needs of MKs from various nationalities, to
give all MKs a sense of ownership in their own language and
culture, and to develop and implement educational approaches
which will enable students to transcend the limitations of their
own culture.

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Resolution XII

Ministry of MK Education

Whereas for over a century God has faithfully called
missionaries to care for MKs, and

Whereas the dedicated service of individuals committed to MK
education is an integral part of the entire mission endeavor,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi commit themselves to support
and encourage those who have been called to the ministry of
MK education.

Resolution XIII

Educational Choice

Whereas in his great goodness God has called families into
cross-cultural service, he has also made provision for the
educational needs of MKs in a variety of ways, including: MK
boarding schools and day schools, home schooling, national
schools, and options within secular settings, and

Whereas missionary parents are sometimes challenged about the
educational choices of their children,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi wish to express thanks to God
for these provisions and offer our continuing support for the
available options and subsequent parental decisions that follow.

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26.

Identifying Issues and Defining Terms

Brian V. Hill

As we consider the complex issues related to education in inter-

national settings, it is helpful to look at Five Criteria of Adequacy for
suitable answers to the questions that are being raised:

1. Understanding of Education

Education is more than schooling. Schooling is a blunt instrument

which is mainly effective in imparting content. It does not necessarily
impart critical thinking. It is not always strong on the relational side. It is
very weak, because of its highly structured form, in encouraging respon-
sibility and personal initiative. We should see education as including
schooling but involving other people as well as trained teachers. Parents
are very influential in the education of boys and girls in informal settings.

If we are convinced that students at the end of year twelve must be

able to go straight into the university systems of their respective parent
cultures, then we are mortgaging the whole of the K12 years to that higher
educational set of objectives. Why not let the first ten years be what we
want them to be? Then the last two years--or three if necessary--can
concentrate on the particular national requirements that we have decided, in
consultation with our children, are what they need. Why must twelve or
thirteen years be given over to the models of the parental culture?

The curriculum cycle, as we traditionally understand it, is to identify

our aims and objectives, then determine what content is needed to fulfill
these objectives. We also think about teaching methods and assessment.
The step we miss is what should come immediately after identifying our
aims and objectives: Which learning environments are we going to need to
fulfill these objectives? The answer won't always be "school." For many
aspects of our children's education, the answer will be something else. So,
we need an adequate understanding of education.

2.

Estimate of Persons

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It is very easy to become preoccupied with subject matter that is

required in the parental culture. Or, we might feel we are more holy
because we are preoccupied with conversion. We sometimes try to use the
blunt instrument of schooling to guarantee that children will be committed
to the Lord, which is an invasion of their holy right to be responsible for
their own choices.

Self-determination is an aspect of the doctrine of persons and must

figure prominently in any adequate theory of education. Sometimes we
treat children as commodities, as investments. The church sometimes
treats them as property and uses protectionist policies to guarantee that
they will stay within its ranks. It is easy to forget that Jesus took risks with
people, and sometimes what he said to them caused them to leave his
ranks. Jesus respected their powers of self-determination: the God-given
right and capacity to be autonomous in their choices and responsible for
those choices.

3.

Appreciation of Culture

We need to understand the acculturation process and the extent to

which we are victims of our own cultural conditioning. In treating multi-
culturalism as a value we are able to begin to move away from simply
repeating our own cultural conditioning in our children. That sometimes
means that we have to be re-educated before we are able to help our
children understand the value of multiculturalism. A further step is
understanding the importance of transcending one's own culture, and
transcending our respect for existing cultures with a viewpoint which
enables us to see that all cultures fall short in some respects, and we are to
seek first the Kingdom of God.

4.

Vision of Our Mission

Our mission as Christians is essentially cross-cultural. It is essentially

to bring the good news to all cultures, including our own. And that mission
needs internationalists: young people who, without losing pride in their
parental culture, have grasped the larger vision of a world for God. And I
do not just mean multinationalists, able to get on with people from other
nations in discourse, but internationalists because they have a vision for

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the world which is capable of carrying them beyond some of their own
cultural prejudices. There is no group of people in the world which has
more potential to become internationalists than the children of mis-
sionaries.

5.

Set of Definitions

The word multicultural has been used in a variety of ways. It would

help if we restricted the use of this term to identifying a value we want to
promote, not a fact we happen to observe in the classroom. A classroom is
not automatically multicultural because it has many children with different
cultural backgrounds. The classroom may in fact be effectively
monocultural or ethnocentric because one curriculum predominates. That
is not a multicultural classroom; it is a multinational classroom. It might
even be better to use the term multi-ethnic because, for example, just to
say that there were a number of American students in our class might
obscure the fact that some are Hispanic American and others are WASP
American. Those differences are worth noting, too. So maybe multi-ethnic
is a better term.

Multiculturalism as a value means embracing the richness of different

cultures and seeking to benefit and to learn from each other. Being
multicultural is an aspect of the creation of God, the way we were made. It
is not the same as multifaith, or some kind of religious universalism in
which every religion gets its own little share of the estate.

Cross-cultural

vs. transcultural is another definition problem. By

cross-cultural we mean accommodating the needs of people from various
nationalities and trying to cross cultures. "Multinational" and "multicul-
tural" are terms that have different meanings already in that sphere.
"Transcultural" is sometimes used in the same way.

The term transcultural refers to the attempt to get above culture,

transcend culture, and appreciate how we become acculturated so that we
can critically observe and inspect our own cultural background.

Some say their school staffs are multinational. Be careful! Most of

the time they are referring to North American and European. We have
hardly begun to grapple with the prospect of having to meet the

Identifying Issues and Defining Terms

251

requirements of Asian curriculum, in addition to the long-deified A levels
and European curriculums.

Summary

There are five criteria of adequacy we must meet which are foun-

dational to implementing the perspective we have developed. We need:

· an adequate understanding of education

· an adequate estimate of persons (our doctrine of persons must be

adequately Scriptural)

· an adequate appreciation of culture (how it happens and how it is

to be transcended)

· an adequate vision of mission

· an adequate set of definitions

We need an adequate mental set toward the whole set of issues.

Every potential disadvantage of education in an expatriate situation has the
potential to be an advantage. The child of missionaries living in a cross-
cultural environment experiences some difficulties, but also opportunities
for growth denied children in their largely monocultural home cultures.
The necessity for individual or self-study and the problems it poses for
boys and girls working without the company of same-culture peers can be,
if well-designed and in good hands, a more efficient way of learning than
mass-production schooling. All elements are negotiable.

Definitions of Transcultural Terms

It is helpful to work from the descriptive to the evaluative. A

descriptive term is one we start with.

Acculturation

simply means growing up and acquiring a culture. The

process of acculturation, similar to socialization, is the sum of all the ways
people enter the culture of their elders. It can occur deliberately through
formal education, but often occurs informally. One may become
acculturated in a very conditioned way or with a critically aware sense of
what is happening.

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Ethnocentricity

is an attitude reflecting the sort of acculturation

which creates firm, through uncritical, conviction that one's own culture is
superior to all others. Ethnocentricity is often very brittle and leads to
defensiveness. People are not sure why they feel so powerfully convinced
that they or their culture is superior, so any suggestion to the contrary is
seen as threatening.

Multi-ethnic

is a descriptive term. It identifies the fact that in a par-

ticular group there are people from several different ethnic backgrounds.
Multicultural is used in a similar descriptive sense as well as an evaluative
sense.

Multi-faith

is a descriptive term indicating the group includes

individuals of different religious backgrounds. It doesn't imply what
beliefs or attitudes people have about different religions.

The term multicultural is often used interchangeably with

multiethnic

and multi-faith. We can use the word multicultural descrip-

tively to say that a group consists of people of many cultures and that in
that sense it is a synonym for multi-ethnic. It shouldn't be used as a
synonym for multi-faith, because that equates faith and culture. The word
multi-cultural is sometimes used to identify people whose backgrounds are
different from the dominant majority culture. To say that a child is multi-
cultural is an atrocious usage! A child may be bicultural, but even there
the meaning is unclear. It is better to say that children are participating
cross-culturally; their background consists of more than one culture.

The term multiculturalism is clearly a value word which describes a

policy, a preference, for encouraging the interaction between cultural
groups. The opposite is monoculturalism, trying to preserve the superiority
of one culture, a form of ethnocentricity. Monoculturalism and
ethnocentricity are essentially synonyms.

Multinational

is a descriptive term for a group where there are people

with several different national backgrounds. Multinational and
multicultural are fairly interchangeable terms, though not completely. The
fact that a particular group is multinational in composition says nothing
about whether they are multicultural in intent. They may, in fact, be in
conflict because most of them are ethnocentric. Multinational merely

Identifying Issues and Defining Terms

253

describes the fact that there are members of several different nations in that
group.

Transcultural

is not just cross-cultural, mingling information from

various cultures. It is an attempt to stand above culture and understand
how it works on us. It is an attempt to transcend cultural influences and to
get more control of our own consciousness and behavior, through
understanding how culture conditions us.

Cross-cultural

is an evaluative term identifying a policy about

several cultures, which makes it the same as multicultural. In cross-ultural
activities, a group from different cultures does things together.
Cross-cultural activities can be a way of promoting multiculturalism.

We must be clear whether we are using these words in the descriptive

way to explain a fact--this group is cross-cultural or this group is
multi-ethnic--or commending a value or policy. Those are two different
ways of using words. Multi-culturalism is a value judgment; a policy to be
promoted.

Some of the words are synonymous. Multi-ethnic and multinational

are nearly synonymous, though it may sometimes be useful to draw the dis-
tinction. Sometimes multicultural is used descriptively as a synonym for
cross-cultural.

Adapted from presentations at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

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27.

The Christian School
in a Missions Context

Richard J. Edlin

This chapter will address a broad range of issues regarding the Chris-

tian school, whether an MK school (designed for missionary children) or a
local Christian school which serves MKs as well as other children. First,
we will consider one of the great challenges such schools face.

Missionary teachers are a dedicated group of people who derive much

joy and satisfaction from their profession. However, there is a crisis of
confidence among many missionary schoolteachers. The problem is that
many teachers in MK schools are seen as "second-class" missionaries, who
carry out the Great Commission only if they involve themselves in outreach
programs outside of school hours.

The high MK teacher attrition rate, which is one consequence of this

problem, has drastic consequences for the care and nurture of MKs and for
the overall implementation of the Great Commission. Many missionary
schools have annual staff turnover rates of between 40 and 60 percent.
This impacts all of the families on the field, as children lack continuity in
the school. Also, new teachers' lack of cross-cultural competency means
that they may have a reduced ability to educate and nurture the MKs under
their care in a culturally sensitive way. Finally, continuity and development
in curriculum are difficult to attain.

This situation has serious implications for the whole life of the

mission. As one mission administrator commented, "When the MK school
is happy, the whole mission is happy; but when the MK school is having
problems, the whole mission suffers." Unhappiness with children's
education is a common cause of missionary attrition.

The consignment of the MK teacher to a second-class status is derived

from a poor understanding of just what Jesus called his people to do in the
Great Commission, as recorded in Matthew 28:1820.

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The Service Task of the Missionary School

The solution to the problem is a biblical perspective. In order to

understand the Great Commission in relation to teachers in missionary
schools, we need to be reminded of the three functions of an MK school:
service, outreach,

and discipleship.

MK school purpose statements make clear that a core reason for their

existence is the provision of quality, culturally sensitive education to MKs.
With this assurance, missionary parents can engage in their own activities
and know that their children's educational needs are being met. The church
planter in the jungle, the pastor working in the urban slum, and the
treasurer in the mission office, are all more able to fulfill their tasks
because of the help of others who are teaching their children.

Teachers have been entrusted by the Lord with the high calling of

servanthood. Our Lord came not to be served but to serve (Matthew
20:28) and modeled this characteristic for us on that memorable occasion
recorded in when he washed his disciples' feet.

The Outreach Task of the Missionary School

Yes, even MKs need the Lord. The lives of the faculty and the nature

of the curriculum should present an exciting celebration of the Lordship of
Christ over his world and the challenges to all of us to respond. When
adult MKs speak about their experiences at MK schools, many concerns
are expressed, but one enduring cause for praise to God is the formative
influence of their missionary school and its staff on their personal spiritual
growth. When MKs see in their teachers the love of God and obedience to
his commands, they are led to know, love, worship, and serve the Lord.

Another exciting aspect to this ministry is that many missionary

schools have opened their doors to other students--expatriates and
nationals, who present further outreach opportunities. Outreach to national
children has incredible potential. Missionaries often lament the difficulty
of reaching the upper socioeconomic classes of society, from which most of
the leaders in politics, commerce, medicine, law, and education come.
This the same group that missionary schools often find besieging them
with requests for the enrollment of their children.

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Missionary schools have a vital ministry upon influential expatriate

leaders and their families. Several years ago, when communism still
dominated Eastern Europe, evangelist Billy Graham was able to conduct a
series of meetings behind the Iron Curtain. In Hungary he had the chance
to speak to a huge youth rally, but he needed an interpreter-- one who who
was young, fluent in English and the local language, and a Christian, so
that he could faithfully translate the Christian message. Where could they
find such a person in a communist-controlled country?

They found one. His parents had been diplomats in Africa, where he

was sent to the local missionary school and became a Christian. Later the
family went home to Hungary. When Billy Graham was looking for a
Christian youth to translate for him, here he was, a Christian because of the
witness of a school in Africa! Our missionary schools and their teachers are
a vital part of the worldwide ministry of evangelism.

The Discipleship Task of the Missionary School

The third function of the MK school is discipleship. This is the area

of greatest misunderstanding of the Great Commission and its application
to the MK school. In Matthew 28:1720, Jesus did not say "Go and make
converts of all nations"; he instructed his followers to "make disciples of
all nations." The difference between what Jesus actually said and what
many people think he said is central to understanding the missionary
calling and the task of the missionary school.

Conversion is only the first step in discipleship. If the Christian life

were fully accomplished at conversion, then we would not possess much of
the New Testament. Paul's letters to Corinth, Galatia, and Philippi were
written to people who were already Christians. Yet, in these letters, Paul
was still carrying out the Great Commission by encouraging Christians,
strengthening their faith, and instructing them. He was teaching them to
observe all that the Lord had taught.

The Great Commission, in all its fullness, includes the process of

conversion and then teaching and nurturing people in Christ's way. Except
for the church and the family, there are few other institutions in society
more centrally concerned with this nurturing discipleship process than the
missionary school. As teachers explore with their students the nature of

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the world and the students' places and tasks in it, their teaching should be
done in such a vibrant and exciting way as to challenge the students in all
areas of life. The nurturing and discipleship that each teacher engages in
with students is at the heart of the Great Commission.

Praise God for the service ministry, outreach ministry, and disciple-

ship ministry of the missionary school. Let us be faithful in prayer for them
as they have the blessing and great responsibility of working with young
people, as partners with missionary parents, in nurturing and challenging
students to live for Christ in all corners of the globe.

Culturally Sensitive Education in the Missionary School

Missionary schools are very concerned that they be culturally

sensitive. Often, the pressure has come from mission boards that see
effective missionaries leaving the field because the mission school is only
preparing its students for college in North America or the United Kingdom.
There are also sound educational and developmental reasons that provide a
firm foundation for this development. In order to consider these, we must
define what is meant by the term "cultural sensitivity," and see how it
functions in two important dimensions.

Cultural sensitivity

may be defined in our context as the development

of patterns that show an awareness of and responsiveness to the varied
cultural backgrounds, realities, and aspirations of the whole school
community

. Some parents have feared that the development of cultural

sensitivity will result in the denial of culture or being robbed of one's
cultural identity and heritage. This is not the case. In fact, the purpose for
cultural sensitivity in an MK school is the opposite--to affirm the cultural
roots and heritages of all of the students in the school. It will recognize
both the successes and failures of different cultures and will evaluate them
all from a biblical perspective.

A simple example of cultural sensitivity is the teaching of the concept

of money and decimalization. When the concept of money is taught to
younger grades, it should be taught using the decimal currency of the
country where the students live. Once the concept of money and
decimalization has been established, a culturally sensitive teacher will
encourage students, with the help of their families, to discover and share
the decimalization currency pattern of their own particular homelands. In

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this way, the cultures of all the students are affirmed and taught. In ad-
dition, the children are being immediately prepared to function in the
culture in which they currently are living.

Cultural sensitivity has two dimensions: an external sensitivity to the

culture surrounding the school, and an internal dimension to the multiple
cultures represented within the school. Each of these dimensions has its
own special considerations.

The External Dimension of Cultural Sensitivity

In this dimension, the MK school recognizes and responds to its

location, usually in a third-world country that has its own distinctive
language and patterns of life. Understanding and appreciation of the cul-
ture that surrounds them is a part of the unique heritage of MKs. A lively,
vibrant culture surrounds every MK school, and MKs have the right to be
acculturated into that environment. While retaining their own passport
culture, the children will absorb parts of their host culture as well. The
parents and the school have the delightful task of assisting them to do this
in an exciting and God-honoring way. Some competency in the local
language and a practical familiarity with the local culture are the adopted
birthright of all MKs.

Adults are often more reticent than children to make cultural adjust-

ments. Missionary parents who are reluctant to "get their feet wet"
culturally in their country of ministry can be led and assisted by their
children. Most cultures look fondly upon children, and MKs can assist
their parents in developing cross-cultural relationships. MK schools can be
excellent catalysts in this process.

The external dimension of cultural sensitivity also includes the calling

to be salt and light wherever the Lord has placed us. The MK school
should encourage students to look at ways that they can be God's
ambassadors to that culture, not in a paternalistic or imperialistic context
but in humble service to God.

One of the most exciting features of MK schools around the world is

the way that they carry out this second level of external cultural sensitivity
and actively minister to the culture around them. Morrison Academy in
Taiwan has student-based sports and music outreach programs. Black

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Forest Academy in Germany has students ministering not only to the
surrounding community but to Eastern European refugee camps as well. At
the Alliance Academy in Quito, Ecuador, most students are involved in
dynamic, school-based, voluntary community outreach programs.
Carachipampa Christian School in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has a student
missions program that ministers to native Indians in villages in the
Amazon jungle. No wonder a large percentage of MKs become leaders in
their adult lives and that many of them return as missionaries themselves to
the country in which they received their MK education!

The Internal Dimension of Cultural Sensitivity

The internal dimension of cultural sensitivity is the sensitivity to and

affirmation of all of the cultures represented in the school. One culture
may provide more resources than another. For example, if the MK school a
majority of its students aiming at college education in North America, then
it is appropriate for North American educational patterns to be very obvi-
ous. However, this should not be at the expense of a sensitivity to the
culture around the school and to the backgrounds, realities, and aspirations
of students who come from non-North American backgrounds.

It may seem impossible to establish educational patterns that are

culturally sensitive and diverse in the history syllabus, the school's
resource and textbook base, or assessment and evaluation. A creative
teamwork approach to the educational task, however, does make it
possible. There are four components to successful implementation of
internal cultural sensitivity: teamwork, a Christian responsive curriculum
model, a conceptual or thematic approach to instruction, and a proper view
and use of resources.

Teamwork

MK schools not only incorporate a large cultural diversity in the stu-

dent body, but the teachers may also come from many different countries.
Teachers tend to teach from the basis of their own culture and training, and
educational methodologies differ widely around the world. Ask a teacher
from New Zealand and one from a Christian school in Florida to discuss
the best way of teaching children to read, and just watch the sparks fly! If

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all the teachers operate in their classrooms on the basis of their own
educational training and experience, there is potential for a severely
fragmented educational program.

In the Christian international school, however, the basic reality is not

that the teachers are divided by culture, but that they are united in Christ.
While they do not all accept New Zealand or Holland's educational
methods as the correct way of teaching, they should all accept the authority
of the Bible and Christian presuppositions as the standards for all of life,
including education. Christian teachers from many cultures can dig
beneath their diverse cultural prejudices for a common biblical foundation
for the educational task. In this way, discussion about the life of the school
becomes creative and constructive. Once a biblically based foundation has
been laid, then teachers can use the experience of their own cultural back-
grounds, and their awareness of the needs of their students, to develop
educational structures that are uniquely appropriate in the school in which
they are serving.

For this cooperative educational structure to occur, the school board

and administration must cultivate the concept of the team of teachers
within the life of the school. We should never operate as if our own
cultural heritages are the bottom line for us. We should recognize the a
priori

foundation of the Bible and subject all of our attitudes and per-

spectives to its supranational searching gaze.

In the MK school situation, faculty have responded to the call of God

to be teachers in that school. Often, they are not paid a salary by the
school but have raised support in the same manner as other faith mis-
sionaries. They have left their home cultures and comforts in response to
God's call. They are fellow workers together with the administration and
should be recognized as a team. Under the direction and leadership of the
school administration, all teachers should be provided with the opportunity
and responsibility of providing significant input and direction into the life
of the school. Team ownership, commitment, and direction are all vital to
the successful development of internal cultural sensitivity.

A Christian, Responsive Curriculum Development Model

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Curriculum development in all Christian schools should be based

upon biblical principles. A model explaining this is found in Chapter 6 of
The Cause of Christian Education

by Richard Edlin. That model has been

attractive to MK schools because after establishing a sound biblical basis
for the curriculum development process, it directs its users to closely
examine the nature of the student community. The model keeps the nature
of the students in the forefront as later-stage curriculum development steps
are taken: the determination of aims and objectives, selection of resource
materials, and assessment procedures. By highlighting a sensitivity to the
background, present realities, and future expectations of the student body,
this curriculum development model provides an important structural tool
for developing internal cultural sensitivity in the international Christian
school. Also, see Chapter 42 in this volume.

A Proper Place for Textbooks

If the textbooks are the prime determiner of the school's instructional

program, the school will never be culturally sensitive. Texts are written
from particular cultural as well as religious perspectives. A book written in
Canada will probably be written by Canadians for Canadian schools. If an
MK school allows this text to determine its classroom program, then the
classroom program will highlight a Canadian view of the world in both
content and perspective. It may well be entirely appropriate to use books
from Canada in the multinational MK school (in fact, some excellent MK
schools do exactly that), but these books should be used because they meet
the school's pre-designed curriculum and student patterns, not because they
create these patterns.

Schools that seek to be culturally sensitive must take control of their

own curriculum development processes. Resources such as textbooks and
video programs should be tools, not determiners, of the educational
program. MK teachers must recognize their God-given talents and use
them as a team to shape an educational program.

A Thematic Approach to Teaching

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Even with a correct understanding of the place of texts and other

resources in a multinational, international, or MK school, the development
of a multifaceted program that is culturally sensitive will be difficult in a
traditionally structured classroom where all students study the same
content material all the time. How is it possible, for example, in a fifth-
grade class in Hong Kong with students from twelve different countries in
the same room, to implement a culturally-sensitive curriculum development
model?

The answer lies in developing an integrated and thematic approach to

teaching. The focus is on the skills and concepts the teacher wishes to
convey to the students as the organizing feature of the learning and
teaching environment.

For example, in a social studies class, the teacher may focus on the

concepts that all societies organize themselves into family structures and
develop a system of law and order. She could then teach content material
that illustrates this with places, dates, geographical and sociological detail,
and biblical analysis of the resulting patterns, using one of the cultures
represented in her classroom. She may choose to use as her illustration the
culture of the majority of her students (often U.S.), the culture of the
country that the school is in, or perhaps the culture of a newly arrived MK
so as to give him a sense of belonging and familiarity.

After this, perhaps in groups, the class will take the concepts of

family and law and order and apply them to other cultures such as their
own. In this way, no one culture is discriminated against, and all students
learn about their own heritage. Obviously, textbooks must be resources
and not determiners of the program in this method.

The value of this pattern is enhanced when combined with an

integrated approach to teaching where material related to different subject
areas is linked into the theme or concept being taught. Grade school
teachers, and particularly teachers from British Commonwealth countries,
often are particularly adept at this pattern of teaching. High school or sec-
ondary teachers in the teaching team could well benefit from visiting the
classrooms of these colleagues to learn this creative, culturally sensitive
pattern of teaching from their own resident experts.

Non-English-Speaking MKs

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In recent years, with the arrival of increasing numbers of non-English

speaking missionaries, MK schools have become aware of the obligation to
address the educational needs of children from non-English speaking back-
grounds. The strategies already suggested are useful in this context, but the
added factor of multiple languages within the same classroom has
heightened the complexity of the issue. The matter is made even more
sensitive with regard to Asian missionary families, because of the very
closely structured nature of their home cultures.

A Korean missionary schoolteacher has commented that the single act

of taking Korean children overseas and away from their home culture
means that those children probably never will be able to fit comfortably
back into that home culture again. It is important for mission boards to
recruit teachers like her to circulate and assist Korean children to maintain
and develop an awareness of things Korean. However, because of the tight
structure of her own culture, she believes that even the development of a
totally Korean school in another country would not guarantee cultural re-
entry of graduates to Korea. This re-entry question deserves much closer
attention by mission boards.

Exciting initiatives are being taken to address these issues. In some

situations, MK schools have developed minischools within the school to
provide a culturally oriented program for non-English language groups that
both retains their native cultural and linguistic development and also
integrates these students with the rest of the school for much of the day. In
other locations, mission boards have appointed schoolteachers from
minority-country cultures who travel and visit the children from that culture
and assist them in retaining appropriate cultural ties. Other potential
solutions are still needed.

This issue of appropriately addressing the needs of non-English-

speaking MKs will become increasingly important in the decades ahead as
the reality of the post-Christian culture in the West reduces the flow of
missionaries from that part of the world and the flow of missionaries from
the Far East and the Third World increases even further.

MK Schools and Boarding

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All missionary parents, past and present, who have sent children to

MK boarding schools, would see the family as a God-given institution.
They would also agree that effective role modeling and nurturing is a task
given by God to parents. To suggest or imply that they feel this any less
deeply than parents of children who have not been sent to boarding school
runs the risk of being judgmental and arrogantly self-righteous.

Parents of MKs at boarding schools acknowledge that they and their

children have experienced grief and pain and that there have been instances
of an unsavory nature surrounding the boarding experiences of some MKs.
However, this is no argument against boarding. If the existence of pain
and regrettable happenings were reasons to reject something, then none of
us would qualify to be parents!

In a discussion of the legitimacy of MK boarding schools, the matter

of the acceptance of this practice by many fine Christian families over past
decades has often been raised. Were they all wrong and is the current
generation all right? This argument is too simplistic to be useful. The
environment of the 1990s, especially with regard to communications and
travel, is quite different from that of earlier generations.

How do we best evaluate this child care option that some Christians

castigate and others champion? Part of the answer might come in a re-
examination of the concept of the Christian family. The nuclear family of
the last six decades or so is a construction of contemporary society and is
not necessarily the biblical model. It is important for us as Christians to
support the family, but to revere it above all else is idolatry.

In the context of admonishing parents to bring up their children in the

discipline and instruction of the Lord, the Bible also reminds us of the
accompanying responsibility of the church in this task. This is why during
infant baptism or child dedication the congregation is asked corporately to
ally itself with the parents in the proper nurture and training of the children
being presented. The biblical concept of family is significantly different
from the strict nuclear family rigidity that is sometimes promoted.

I suspect that the story of Hannah and Samuel makes very discon-

certing reading for those who denounce missionary parents for sending
their children to boarding schools. We read in 1 Samuel 1:128 that
Hannah dedicated her son to the Lord. She carried out her dedication in a

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very special way, however, entrusting her son to the care and nurture of the
religious community. She sent him, as a young boy, to the temple to be
brought up and serve the Lord there. God blessed her faith in a marvelous
way in the life of Samuel.

Hannah did not do this with her other children, but we should think

long and hard before we reproach her for what she did. In a real sense, one
aspect of her dedication and divine worship was her recognition of the
corporate responsibility of the people of God in nurturing her son. The
same mentality characterizes the decisionmaking of many missionary
parents who enlist the aid of dorm parents in the nurture of their children.

The experience of Jesus when his parents left him behind in Jerusalem

as a boy could lead to a criticism of Mary and Joseph for being inadequate
parents. However, as we read that story in Luke 2:4151, we see another
biblical example of the corporate responsibility of the people of God in
child nurture. Mary and Joseph were not worried at first that Jesus was not
with them personally, because they thought that "he was with their
company." In other words, they thought that Jesus was with the extended
family or friends who had journeyed together to Jerusalem. Care for Jesus
in the company of God's people obviously was considered to be appropri-
ate for the Son of God by his earthly parents. A similar philosophy
characterizes the use of MK boarding homes by missionary families.

As parents, we recognize the importance of the help of others in

rearing of our children. When I take my own children to the doctor, the
trombone teacher, or the summer camp counselor, I am not abrogating my
responsibility as a parent. I am exercising my parental responsibility by
entrusting my children to the care of people who can give them something
that I am not able to provide.

Not everyone should consider it appropriate to send their children to a

boarding school. In fact, there will be many situations where missionaries
rightly choose otherwise. Factors such as the age of the child, his or her
personality, location, the perspective of the home culture, and personal in-
teractions within the home may lead parents to decide against boarding.
Generally speaking, we should affirm this choice. However, we should not
condemn Christian parents for believing that boarding is part of what the
Lord has called them to do. We need to encourage the recognition of the
importance of a biblical, rather than cultural, concept of the family.

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We should promote the importance of the church family in assisting

with the nurture of children, and we should encourage missionary parents
and their supporters to realize that there is a biblical perspective within
which to consider the choice of boarding school. It should also be
acknowledged that some cultures view boarding as appropriate even in the
home country, and other cultures view it as little short of child abuse.
These cultural perspectives are part of the social background of mission-
ary parents as they make choices about boarding.

The boarding experience has changed significantly from what some

MKs experienced in years gone by. Missionary parents often say that it is
not the children who attend boarding school who feel deprived, but those
who are left behind at home! Going home from boarding school is more
frequent than in previous decades, and the biblical concept of nurture as
opposed to child-minding has become much more important. In addition,
mission boards have developed other options such as satellite schools to
enable younger children to stay at home.

We must support those who champion the biblical family. We also

need to accept the fact that spiritually sensitive, mature Christians can
legitimately be convinced that it is the right thing for them to send their
children to a proper, caring MK boarding school where the children are
entrusted for a time to competent dorm parents.

We should use our energies in a constructive manner and devote

ourselves to helping boarding schools to be the very best help that they can
be in service to missionary families. Pre-field orientation for MK school
personnel (see Chapter 43) should be strongly supported.

MK Schools and Accreditation

Accreditation has long been accepted in North America as a way of

promoting self-improvement and verifying educational quality in schools.
In other countries, this process is known as school inspection. In 1992,
ACSI developed an accreditation instrument for use in missionary schools
outside of North America. It compares a school's situation to a set of well-
established and recognized educational standards. It also provides a pattern
for developmental and self-improvement programs such as curriculum
design, evaluation, and assessment.

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267

The ACSI document has several unique features that make it very

attractive to MK schools. ACSI Overseas Schools Accreditation has been
designed specifically for the international environment. It highlights an
investigation into the Christian philosophical base of the school and the
way a Christian world and life view filters through the school. It also is
designed to investigate and stimulate a school's cultural sensitivity.

In the area of philosophy of education, for example, an accredited

school must have a program for training teachers in a Christian philosophy
of education. This is important in an MK school where many of the
teachers come from secular school backgrounds where educational method-
ologies were framed by secular humanist presuppositions.

The intention of the Christian philosophy of education course is to

expose the teachers to a Christian way of thinking about education and to
have them prepare a personal response to this. First, teachers study
resources which explain biblical foundations for Christian education.
Second, the teachers produce a paper for their administrator or headmaster
which outlines their own personal philosophy of education, reveals the
biblical foundations for their position, and illustrates how it affects what
they do in the classroom. Teachers are challenged to think about the educa-
tional process from a distinctively Christian point of view and to respond
in a personal and practical way.

School accreditation is important to missionary families because it

reassures them that independent educators have verified the philosophical
integrity of the school and the educational competency of its programs. It
also provides an important verification of the school's student transcripts
when they apply for entry into college.

Accreditation is important to mission boards because it serves as an

educational audit of the school in the same way that a good financial audit
verifies and publicly recognizes the mission's fiscal accountability and
good standing. For teachers, it provides a stimulus and framework for self-
improvement and recognition as well as encouragement for a job well done.
It also allows many U.S. teachers to maintain their state teacher certifi-
cation by meeting the requirement that they must teach in an accredited
school.

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The calling to be a missionary teacher is a great blessing and honor.

MK schools serve the kingdom of God by their ministries to the missions
community, the expatriate community, and the indigenous community in a
unique and effective manner. Let us praise God and pray for the students
and teachers in these schools, and lay the challenge of teaching in an MK
school before Christian teachers.

Abridged, with minor editing, from The Cause of Christian

Education

(Northport, AL: Vision Press, 1994), Chapter 9.

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Options for MK Education

Joyce M. Bowers

When parents with dependent children are called into ministry, God

calls the whole family. The model of healthy family relationships can
communicate biblical principles, even when language barriers prevent
verbal communication.

Schooling options play a major role in who children become, "edu-

cating" them in areas far beyond the academics. Each option has unique
strengths and benefits, and the choices you make require as much prayer
and guidance as other ministry-related decisions.

Every schooling option provides richness in ways others cannot. No

one schooling option is broad enough to encourage development of all the
skills, abilities, and attitudes you will want your children to acquire to be
ready to live independently when the time comes. This is especially true if
your children spend most of their growing-up years in an isolated setting
overseas, and you want them to be prepared to live successfully one day in
your home country. Look for comprehensiveness and balance over your
children's total school career.

Many families find that a long-term "family education plan" helps

them to be aware and take advantage of the different schooling options that
will support them in fostering this broad range of skills, attitudes, and
values. A family education plan takes into consideration the furlough or
home assignment cycle, and opportunities or activities available in the
home country but not in the ministry setting.

Issues to Consider

Early years in a ministry setting are the best time for children to learn

the national language and build relationships in the culture. Also, if they
will be living away from their parents later on, it helps them feel more
involved in the ministry if they know the people their parents are
ministering to and understand what their lives are like.

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One of the most difficult decisions in MK education is whether or not

to send children to boarding school. However, research has shown that the
quality of a child's relationship to parents is of far more significance to
healthy development than whether or not he or she attends a boarding
school.

The teen years are very important for identity development. National

schools or isolation from home country peers may become inappropriate
during adolescence, if children are to identify themselves as citizens of their
passport country as adults. Building close relationships with a variety of
Christian adults helps teens "separate" from their parents and encourages
them to claim as their own Christian beliefs and values modeled in other
adults they admire.

(This section was excerpted by permission from "Family Education

Plan" by Sharon Haag, Parents Teaching Overseas, June 1996.)

Features of Educational Options

The following are brief summaries of features of different types of

schooling available to missionary families. Of course, not all options are
available in every location. See Chapter 29 for a discussion of how to
make good choices of educational options available.

Home Schooling

·

One-on-one instruction in a caring, flexible setting

·

Opportunity to impart family values

·

Requires large time commitment on part of one or both parents

·

Parent(s) must be able to step in and out of the parent vs. teach

role and not see this as a hindrance to their relationship with the
child.

·

Child has limited exposure to authority figures other than

parents.

For more information, see "Home Schooling in the Missions Context"

by Paul Nelson, Evangelical Missions Quarterly, April 1988.

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271

Correspondence Courses or Distance Learning

Traditional

·

Parents do teaching as in home schooling, but do not evaluate

student's progress.

·

Lessons are sent to the school for grading or evaluation.

·

Slow or unreliable mail service creates significant difficulties.

New Developments

·

Electronic communication, if available, makes distance learning

a much more viable option.

·

Models are being developed in Australia.

For more information, see "Distance Education: How Far Away Is

It?" by Patti Hoyt, Interact, May 1997.

Assisted Home Schooling

·

Assistance from MK school in larger population center

·

Children on same curriculum as MK school

·

Access to library and other learning resources, such as videos

·

Participation in field days and special programs at MK school

·

May spend periods of time in MK school classroom

·

Relationship with the school provides easier transition for later

boarding.

·

Requires commitment on the part of the school administration

and teachers

·

Some schools have a full-time staff person specifically for

advising and assisting home schoolers.

·

Central and Eastern Europe and C.I.R.: SHARE program

·

Resource center may be provided by MK school.

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·

Resource center may be jointly organized by families.

·

In some situations, assistance may be available from tutors or

itinerant teachers.

For more information see "Serving Our Extended Community: How

MK Schools Can Minister to Home Schooling Families" by Betty
Engelhardt and Don Williams, World Report, April/May 1997.

"Expanding Schools' Vision for Supporting Homeschoolers" by

Sharon Haag, Interact, February 1996.

"SHARE: Providing Resources for Eastern Europe" by Janet

Blomberg, Interact, May 1994.

"A Cooperative Effort for Nurturing MK Children: The SSS

Program" by Bruce Hekman, Interact, March 1992.

"Relationships with Tutors and Itinerant Teachers: Making It Work!"

by Sharon Haag, Parents Teaching Overseas, July 1993.

Cooperative Home Schooling

·

Several families join together for school of five to ten children.

·

Curriculum provided by home schooling programs.

·

Provides academic and social stimulation of other children

·

Requires commitment and adaptability on part of all parents

·

Requires less time than "pure" home schooling, but is less

flexible

·

May be done with an international curriculum and a group of

students

·

Character is developed through give and take with others who

think differently.

·

Can be done with limited resources, a few students, and un-

trained teachers

·

Requires creativity, commitment, love for children, and depen-

dence on God for wisdom and guidance

For more information, see:

Options for MK Education

273

"Home Schooling--Cooperative Style: A New Option in MK

Education" by Diane Morris, Interact, February 1993.

"Establishing a Cooperative Home School" by Janet R. Blomberg,

Interact

, February 1993.

"Walking the Road to Emmaus: Parents Share in Cooperative Home

Schooling" by Dr. David Brooks and Linda Clifton, Interact, May 1994.

Small Classroom or Multigrade Classroom

·

Satellite Schools similar to old-fashioned "one-room school-

house"

·

Homey atmosphere good for developing strong friendships and

learning to be productive members of groups

·

May be part of a field education system

·

Usually has ten or more full-time students

·

Regular meeting place set aside for education

·

At least one full-time teacher with training and credentials

·

Has a governing body with a written policies and philosophy or

mission statement

·

Has equipment adequate to achieve the objectives of the edu-

cational program

·

Finances are handled with planning and care.

·

Clear maintenance of records (attendance, progress, and health)

For more information, see:

"The Multigrade Classroom: Can It Work for You?" by Donna

Crawford, Interact, May 1997.

"Quality Education for New and Small Schools: Planning for Im-

provement" by David K. Wilcox, World Report, February/March 1996.

"Satellite Schools: A New Option in MK Education" by David F.

Brooks, Interact, February 1993, along with "A Principal's Perspective"
and "A Teacher's Perspective" in the same issue.

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National Schools--Public or Private

·

Help the family fit better into the local community and culture

·

Provide linguistic fluency and cultural integration

·

Require supplementary work, especially in English

·

May or may not provide requirements for higher level education

(high school or college)

·

Education in local schools at the secondary level will result in a

strong cultural bias toward the host country. Boy-girl friendships
are likely to be formed, and the basis for adult life within the host
country will be established.

·

Education may be linked with the national religion or popular

religious practice.

·

Curriculum and quality of academic instruction varies.

·

Philosophy of instruction and disciplinary methods reflect cul-

tural values.

·

Learning by rote may be practiced rather than a deductive

process.

·

Content may be emphasized rather than creativity.

·

More than one or two years required to achieve academic com-

petency, comfort, and fluency in a new language

·

May wish to have a child attend a national pre-school and/or a

limited time each day while continuing home study in the mother
tongue

·

Generally not advisable to begin a child in a second-language

school situation after the age of 11 or 12

·

May be advisable to have child repeat a year of school in the

second language if entry is in elementary years

·

Non-academic courses or activities may be combined with home

schooling to provide necessary academic training.

For more information, see:

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"My Child in the National Schools" by Cynthia Storrs, Interact,

February 1997.

"Notes on Using National Schools," Parents Teaching Overseas,

April 1992

Mission Schools or International Christian Schools

·

May be run by one mission or cooperatively by several missions

·

Student mix varies; may be majority of missionary kids

·

Curriculum is often American; options may be provided to fulfill

requirements of other countries

·

May require boarding

·

May be located across an international border

·

Provides caring teachers with Christian world view

·

Limited identification with national culture

·

Large schools may provide instruction or mentorship in special

ability areas.

·

May provide "halfway steps" in cultural adjustment to passport

country

Boarding School

Boarding is most often tied with the use of mission schools or inter-

national Christian schools. See Chapters 4750 for discussions of what
parents need to keep in mind when considering sending their children to
boarding school.

Secular International Schools

·

Curriculum: often American, sometimes International Baccha-

laureate, U.K. or European

·

Usually extremely expensive, unless an exchange can be worked

out by providing a teacher

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·

Develops strength for standing firm in the faith and becoming

"salt and light" in the world

·

Many students come from wealthy national families or highly

paid expatriate families.

·

May place children in a radically different level of society than

where missionary parents are working

·

Does not enhance strong identification with the local culture

For more information, see "Strategies for Dealing with Crisis in

Missionary Kid Education" by David C. Pollock, International Bulletin of
Missionary Research

, January 1989.

Helpful Periodicals

There are two periodicals which are of particular interest to families

doing home teaching or wishing to be closely involved in their children's
education:

Parents Teaching Overseas

is a monthly newsletter published by

CHED Family Services of Wycliffe Bible Translators, U.S.A. It is avail-
able for $10.00 a year in the U.S. and $18.00 a year to foreign addresses.
Write to 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas, TX 75236-5899.

As its name indicates, PTO is designed for parents who are doing

home teaching. However, it contains many very practical tips on educating
children in non-classroom settings relevant to all missionary families.

Interact

is published quarterly in February, May, October, and

December by Interaction, Inc. Subscription rate is $14.95 per year. Write
to Interact, P.O. Box 863, Wheaton, IL 60189.

Interact

publishes articles about a broad range of educational and

developmental topics, including adaptation and emotional issues. It is the
primary regular source of new thinking in the field of MK education and
care. It also contains announcements of conferences and events.

A third publication is of interest to a broad audience of Christian

educators and parents:

ACSI World Report

is geared toward school staff and administration,

but many of its articles are also of interest to parents who take an active

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interest in their children's education. Its intended audience is not limited to
people who work with MKs, but includes Christian educators both in the
U.S. and overseas.

For current information regarding subscriptions and frequency of

publication, contact ACSI International Ministries, P.O. Box 35097,
Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3509.

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29.

Making Informed Decisions

Joyce M. Bowers

Not all schools of a given type are the same, nor are they the same

from one year to the next. As missionary parents, you need openness and
flexibility, as you may change a decision once you are close to the situation
and see how your child reacts. At the same time, try not to be too quick to
take a child out of a situation that is initially difficult, but may be OK with
time. Such decisions may require the wisdom of Solomon!

At every stage, realize that you will not be able to do everything you

would like--life is not like that--but the more you have thought through
what you want, the more you are able to make good use of unexpected
opportunities. Example: if you have chosen what magazines you would
like your children to receive, when someone asks you, "What can we do to
help?" you can say, "It would be great if you would subscribe to a
magazine for Mary. I'll send you the address."

There is no perfect choice; all choices have pros and cons. As Sharon

Haag says, "What a comfort to know God promises us wisdom but doesn't
expect of us perfection. God is able to take both good and bad decisions
and use them to help us grow as a family so we may also more effectively
serve God as a family" (Parents Teaching Overseas, June 1996).

Evaluate relative merits. The best choice for someone else may not be

the best choice for your family. The presence of friends at a school will
make your child's adjustment easier, and that may make up for other
deficiencies. Within your family, the best choice for one child is not best
for another, and what is right for a child at one age may not be right at
another stage.

The following are things to consider at each stage of mission service:

Pre-Field Process

Making Informed Decisions

279

·

Get as much information as possible about available options in

your location overseas. Good sources of information include
mission board personnel, recently returned missionaries, and
current missionaries from your mission or another group.

·

Write to schools for current information.

·

Attend a Pre-field Educational workshop sponsored by

Interaction and ACSI if possible. This workshop gives
comprehensive information and guidance to parents and is
especially important if your child will be home taught or enrolled
in a national school.

·

Get the SHARE resource book.

·

Think through needs of children and desires of parents, using the

lists below as a guide.

·

Consider the needs of each child as an individual, each parent as

an individual, and the family as a whole. Are you as parents
equipped by training or temperament to teach your children if
needed?

On-Field Process

·

Check out options and information you were given. Things

change very quickly, and the information you were given may not
be accurate. Administration and teaching staff come and go, and a
school which was excellent a few years ago may now be
understaffed and struggling, or vice versa.

·

Visit schools, with a translator if necessary. Find out about the

style of instruction, the type of discipline, and class size.

·

Talk to other parents, or people who have lived there for some

time.

·

Revise your educational plan, taking into consideration new

information, new insight, and first-hand knowledge of your
ministry and living situation.

·

Try to maintain a balance between long-range planning and

adaptation to unforeseen needs and situations.

Home Assignment or Post-Service

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·

Have children tested or evaluated to see if they are at a normal

grade in basic skills if that service was not available overseas.

·

Consult available advisors: persons provided by your mission,

or informal contacts such as friends, family, or members of
supporting churches who are educators.

·

The local public school system may be your best source of

assistance for special needs.

·

Determine what is needed to fill in gaps so that your child can

progress to next stage of education or development; e.g., remedial
math, remedial English, sports activities, socialization.

Factors in Decision Making

There are many factors to take into consideration in making

educational decisions. They include the child's personality, learning style,
innate intellectual ability, and age in coming to the mission field.

Another set of considerations is the type of ministry in which the

parents are engaged, personal or family preferences for schooling, and the
necessity for acquisition of basic language and cultural tools necessary for
surviving in a new place.

It is important to balance of needs of the child as an individual with

the needs of the whole family unit in ministry.

It is best to have an educational plan for each child. While it is

unlikely that you will be able to follow the plan exactly, having your
priorities in mind helps when evaluating available options. You should
also determine what standards will apply when considering a change,
should your first choice prove to be unsatisfactory.

Consider your long-range goals for the future--in five or ten years, at

age 18, or when you expect your son or daughter to enter college or live
independently.

There are many different values which parents may consider impor-

tant in their children's education. Some of these are mutually exclusive. In
the February/March 1996 issue of World Report, David Wilcox listed
many values which missionary parents may hold. The list below is adapted

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from Wilcox's suggestions. Parents should consider and prioritize these
values, along with others which may not be listed. "If you don't know
where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else."

·

Child's ability to communicate, interact, and function effectively

in the host culture

·

Child's fluency in the national or local language

·

Functioning academically at the same level as age peers in home

(passport) culture

·

Similar quality of education as children in home country in terms

of technology, materials, and resources

·

Children identify parents' home culture as their home culture

·

Opportunity for advanced course work

·

At least one parent has significant day-time hours to assist

children educationally

·

Both father and mother involved in home schooling

·

Confidence of parent's ability to educate with minimal

professional assistance

·

Christian peers for the child

·

Availability of special education facilities and specialists

·

Comprehensive, multi-track curriculum (college track, general

track, industrial track)

·

Costs of education and need to use personal funds

·

Save money to finance higher education

·

Opportunities to participate in music, performing arts, extra-

curricular activities, athletics

In the June 1996 issue of Parents Teaching Overseas, Sharon Haag

reported more values and goals which parents have listed.

·

make good academic progress, to extent of the child's abilities

·

develop independent study skills, lifelong learning skills

·

develop competence and ethics in use of technology

·

develop in areas of giftedness

·

be prepared for higher education institutions of choice

·

be able to work under authorities who don't share the same

values

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·

be able to work in groups (i.e., leadership skills and teamwork)

·

develop good work habits and independent living skills for

passport country

·

be emotionally mature and stable; be resilient

·

take advantage of unique host-country learning opportunities

·

make national friends, learn host-country language, develop

culture adaptation skills

·

value host culture

·

value passport country and culture

·

have strong ties to people and places in passport country

·

have a positive sense of identity (e.g., as MK, as citizen of

passport country, as Christian)

·

hold strong Christian values

·

learn to be "salt and light" in host country or passport country

·

develop strong family relationships (including extended family)

·

have good relationships with other Christians

·

use personal gifts in service or ministry to the Body

·

trust God in personal hardship; display perseverance

Balancing Family and Individual Needs

The needs of the family and individuals in the family are all

important. Some people see the call to ministry as the overriding issue in
missionary service. Others see that a ministry that does not allow time for
taking care of the needs of family is flawed. Probably most people are
somewhere in between on this issue.

It is important to stay focused on ministry with the family that God

has called. This means that children understand why their parents are
living overseas and how the Lord is using them to reach people. It means
that parents love and cherish the children God has given them and see that
they live healthy lives in conditions that are sometimes very unhealthful. It
calls for a sense of balance and common sense that does not talk about
family or ministry, but rather focuses on how God may bless each member
of the family in their walk with God.

Giving attention to family needs means that a family does not serve

where reasonable educational choices are not available for each child in the

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family. Neither adults nor children are expected to live at "superhuman"
levels to meet the expectations of ministry in the light of practicalities of
daily living. Such conditions can only produce excessive stress which has a
high likelihood of leading to crises which ultimately damages the ministry,
the family, and individuals in the family.

(This section was adapted from "What Are the Key Dynamics in

Making Educational Decisions?" by David F. Brooks, Interact, February
1996.)

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30.

Transcultural Education:
A Model for Expatriates

Brian V. Hill

At ICMK Manila, I presented a model of expatriate education which

argued that four elements were necessary to the education of the child of
missionaries. The first was induction in the Parental Culture. No one
disputes this requirement; it is obviously foundational. If anything, the
problem is to justify including anything else!

The second element was exploration of the Indigenous Culture, i.e.,

the culture of the people amongst whom the missionary's family was
living. This is a part of missionary children's world, and they should be
helped to reflect on it.

But even this would not guarantee that the individual would be able to

rise above cultural imperialism. So there was a further priority: to develop
a respect for the inherent validity of each culture as a form of life from
which children could draw enrichment. This puts an intrinsic value on
Multiculturalism

as the preferred alternative to narrow ethnocentrism.

To prevent the student from developing an attitude of cultural

relativism in which there were no fixed points, a fourth element was called
for, namely, a Transcultural perspective. This required studies which
looked at culture itself, and increased the student's awareness of how
acculturation occurs, including acculturation of Christian beliefs and
practices. It was a perspective which did not merely move across cultures
but stood above them, developing an independent personal response.

The aim of transcultural education in this sense was to enable the in-

dividual to develop a view of reality which puts a spiritual roof over the
whole, and made possible a truly personal and informed choice about the
gospel invitation. It would be every parent's prayer that this might lead to
the emergence of an internationalist believer, someone capable of
communicating across cultural barriers as well as other divisions between
the races and the sects.

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The present paper draws on this framework of elements to discuss

contemporary realities which should influence the thinking of the
multinational mission community about the education of their children.

Some Contemporary Realities

First, we must come to terms with some realities of today's world.

Now "reality" is a slippery notion. The physical world maintains its shape
for us fairly well, but social reality is shifting all the time.

The social reality in which my parents lived was more stable and

parochial than that which my children inhabit. My parents were without
television in their formative years, newspapers concentrated on local
events, and "missionaries" were strangely restless people who left the
comfort of home to convert the heathen in remote and barbaric lands. Let
us consider some contemporary realities which have great significance for
the education of the children of missionaries and other expatriates.

Transient status

First, the status of missionaries in a country of placement is almost

always transient. Most missionaries retain their home country citizenship
by choice. Some missionaries adopt practices which unconsciously mini-
mize their real commitment to the local people. They may prefer residence
in a missionary compound and relate to local people in a way which makes
locals feel like needy clients rather than equal brothers and sisters.

Children of missionaries become even more aware of transient status

when they are sent away to another country for schooling. In the home,
some children hear constant approving references to the parental culture,
and disapproving and patronizing references to the local culture. There is a
reluctance on the part of some missionaries to let their children attend local
schools or learn about local traditions.

Transient status bites deep. It can produce psychological insecurity

and depression. It can cause people to develop a tough exterior which
hampers intimacy with others. And the children of missionaries in turn can
become independent and self-contained, reluctant to reveal their feelings to
others or to invest in close relationships.

Multicultural context

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The second social reality is equally obvious: missionaries today work

in a multicultural context. Their own presence there is enough to make it
so, but there has also been a massive global mingling of ethnic and
religious groups.

(a) In the larger society

Even where the local population may be ethnically homogeneous,

people are becoming more resistant to an evangelistic approach which
says: "This is the truth, ignore all suggestions to the contrary and believe
it." Today, even in quite remote villages, people are becoming aware that
there are alternative views of the world, and that much of what was offered
to them in past times in the name of Christ came with a Westernization
price-tag. They are now learning to recognize cases of cultural imperialism
and economic rape.

No longer can we shrug off the reality and the validity of other

cultures. If the gospel is to prove its superiority, it must do so by
acknowledging the good things in local lifestyles, while offering the people
a keystone that they lack.

(b) In the missionary society

The reality of multiculturalism also applies to the composition of the

missionary community itself. Missionaries come from many countries, the
more recently evangelized areas as well as the long Christianized ones.

It is necessary to recall that God baptized multiculturalism at the very

birth of the church. Pentecost sent the gospel to the ends of the earth, in
multiple languages and multiple cultural vehicles. Though most religions
have "sacred" languages such as Sanskrit, Hebrew, or Arabic, the Christian
revelation can freely be translated into other languages.

Probably the soundest missionary societies today are those which are

genuinely multinational. Multinational missionary societies are the hope of
the church, and that hope rests on the shoulders of young internationalists
who have had a fully transcultural education.

Parents in the Hot Seat

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The third contemporary reality is the hot seat in which parents find

themselves. Many people bemoan what they see to be a weakening of
parental authority and control. At the same time, however, they find their
children turning to them for advice about complicated life choices and
financial support through their university education. In industrially
advanced societies, children are dependent on their parents for longer than
ever before, and they do not always like the position this puts them in.

There are paradoxes here. Parents may feel more powerless, but in

some respects their power to control their children's lives has increased.
Parents have a greater chance to influence their children by reason and
persuasion; the difference between power and influence being that the first
represents domination (however loving it may be) while the second invites
the learner to become a responsible, choosing person.

Many parents undervalue the importance of the environment of love,

discipline, and security which they are best fitted to create for the child.
The reality is that few professionals can have as much time for the indi-
vidual as parents can; few professionals can afford the emotional commit-
ment to the child as a person which comes naturally to parents; and few
professionals have access to the range of clues available to parents in
offering guidance on future life choices. Parents remain the primary influ-
ences on children, with the serious responsibility which Scripture gives to
parents to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The Relevance of the Incarnation

The fourth contemporary reality is the relevance of the incarnation

principle. God pioneered it. He took the very nature of a servant and
became a true human being: he enjoyed grilled fish and got the dust of
Galilee between his toes. This is still the hallmark of the most valid cross-
cultural mission. God has taught us some hard lessons in this century,
letting foreign missionaries be driven out of several countries so that
indigenous Christians might come to the full flower of maturity and
responsibility. Then, in many cases, he has re-opened doors for those
missionaries to return as servants and consultants to local churches. The
principle of ministry through incarnation is a contemporary reality.

How much is this reflected in the learning experiences we desire for

our children? Are we in tune with it if we try to insulate them from the

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local culture in their growing up? It is not without significance that the
Christ-child was suckled in Egypt and served his apprenticeship in the
frontier town of Nazareth. With a good home life, many things are
possible.

The Construction of My Child's Reality

This prompts a consideration of the construction of a child's reality.

Human beings do not only live in a physical world, but build a repre-
sentation of that world in their minds. This representation differs for each
individual.

Human beings need an adequate world view, one which gives meaning

to all of life, to remain healthy. The gospel of Christ is all about meaning
and destiny. It provides a world view which fits all the facts and positions
the sovereign God at the center. It also positions the rest of our social
experience in proper relation to that center. The Christian perspective is
not merely concerned with heaven or individual salvation, but with the
transformation of the Now.

The agonizing question: what is best for my child?

All this reflects very directly on the question of how we should raise

our children. The question is particularly agonizing for missionary parents.
They look at the wholly different culture in which they have been called to
serve, and their instinct is to say: how can I protect my child from this?
They sometimes forget that its differentness is partly a function of the fact
that the missionaries' own acculturation took place in another culture,
whereas their children may not find it nearly so threatening. The children's
natural adjustment is to a multicultural context in which the family and the
wider environment provide different inputs. Children are often better than
their parents at integrating.

But the question of what is best for my child is still an agonizing one,

especially in cases where educational standards in local schools fall
woefully short of international comparisons. Guilt feelings can distort
parents' evaluation of the options, because they may feel that they have
disadvantaged their children in advance by obliging them to grow up in a
disadvantaged culture. To compensate, they may feel that they have to
send them away from the home circle to an enclave school where they can
get "a good education." But that is not a decision to be taken lightly. It

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puts a burden of surrogate parenthood on school personnel which they are
not well equipped to bear.

The unreflective answer: parental culture

But even if parents do not send children away, they may decide that

the solution is to spin a cocoon in which the home culture has exclusive
reign. Our model called it the parental culture, because it will not be the
home

culture of children born in the country of placement. Parents who

want their children to be clones of themselves, even clones in Christian
faith, are denying their children's right and responsibility before God to
become themselves.

Culturally, the children of missionaries and other expatriates have a

foot in two camps, and their education must include guided studies of both.
That is why our model calls for studies of the indigenous culture as well as
the parental culture, along with the encouragement of a commitment to the
value of multiculturalism.

The construction of realities

Such advice is not going to appeal to those parents who think that

their home culture is vastly superior to all other cultures, or to those who
uncritically endorse the view that schooling is the key to education. But the
realities which such people have constructed for themselves are not in tune
with contemporary life. Let us examine these two assumptions in detail.

(a) My child is disadvantaged

First, many missionaries assume that their children are disadvantaged

because they are not growing up in the home culture. This is not a fact, but
an interpretation. It is the construction of a reality which may then affect
the way the child perceives life in the mission field.

It was exciting to read the responses of many missionary parents when

asked to consider their children in a questionnaire item, "What do you see
as the main advantages and disadvantages of being the children of
missionaries?" Some responses were:

· "Their sense of values is diverted from materialism to people-

centered values."

· "They have seen first hand God's power working through the

lives of people who otherwise would not have heard the gospel."

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· " They grow up accepting people of other races...Their minds are

more creative -- they have had to learn to entertain themselves."

· "They have an opportunity to see the world-wide Body of Christ

expressed visibly and locally...A sense of being a world citizen."

There were, of course, references to the risks in of disease, physical

danger, and persecution in some countries, and there were testimonies to
the sense of rootlessness which can be brought on by frequent changes of
assignment. But the most important insight to be derived from reading
these frank testimonies was that a great deal hinges on the way in which
missionaries construct the reality of their situation for themselves and their
children. In any culture, at any time, there are advantages and
disadvantages. By far the majority of the seventy-five parents responding
to the questionnaire felt strongly that the advantages of being a
"missionary kid" clearly out weighed the disadvantages.

Why then did they exhibit such anxiety about being able to fit

smoothly back into the home culture? There were plenty of criticisms of
the home culture for its materialism, competitiveness, selfishness, and lust.
Yet a paramount educational objective for many parents was for their
children to go back into that system. It was disappointing to detect this
internal contradiction in the responses.

Missionary families are breeding grounds for potential Christian

internationalists, "citizens of the world," as one parent put it. What a
resource! What valuable people to have in Christian strategy meetings,
able to interact with vision and easy fellowship among Christians from
other cultures; culturally liberated, ambassadors of a gospel for all cultures.

(b) Schooling is the key

The other social construction we must examine critically is the view

that schooling is the key to education. This is dangerous, because although
many things can be achieved by schooling, it is nevertheless a very blunt
social instrument. In the promotion of individual learning it is very
inefficient and time-wasting. It is addicted to compulsory strategies --in
maintaining social control, presenting core curriculum, and conducting
formal assessment. These things foster alienation and discourage personal
discovery. Christian schools run the additional risk of substituting the

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goal of behavioral conformity to the Christian way for free personal
commitment.

Remember that only in the last 200 years have societies adopted the

school as a universal strategy for education. Before that, people learned
through home nurture and example, through apprenticeships, through
private study and travel, and through friendships and voluntary group
living. The chief value of schools, and the reason why universal schooling
is

necessary in the present day, is that schools are best able to marshal the

resources needed to initiate students into that complex technological and
pluralistic reality which is contemporary society. But schools need to be
seen as only one important strategy among several in the education of the
young.

Even churches tend to be over-addicted to the schooling paradigm as

the best way to educate, despite the fact that formal schools are not
mentioned at all in the Bible. All the educational and nurturing objectives
spelled out in Scripture are remitted to educational agencies of other kinds.
Paramount is the family circle, with many opportunities for informal
learning through parental example and "as you walk along the road."

Another learning environment is the Christian congregation, each one

teaching the other as they share the Christian life together. And the one-to-
one discipleship model is seen throughout the Scriptures.

Why do we assume that we need all the years from K to 12 to prepare

our children for higher education? Only the last two years at most need
focus on national requirements, leaving us free in the other ten or eleven to
fashion the education of our choice.

What are our children learning from us when we push so hard for

them to conform to the requirements of the educational establishment in
our home country? The reality we are constructing for them owes more to
our cultural conditioning than to a biblical perspective. That is where the
need for a transcultural perspective comes in.

The Transcultural Perspective Revisited

What it is not

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At this point it is specially needful to clarify the sense in which the

term "transcultural" is being used here. It is not merely "cross-cultural"
education. Two inadequate interpretations must be guarded against.

(a) Learning about two cultures

One is the view that all that is required is to learn about a second

culture as well as the parental culture. Our model calls for study of the
indigenous culture as well as the parental culture. But this could result in
an individual whose ethnocentric view of the world had been reinforced,
because the second culture always came off second best in comparison with
the parental culture.

There are two problems with shaping the child's reality in this way:

first, an uncritical confidence in the superiority of the parental culture
would not be Christian, because all cultures fall short. Secondly, the child
would be prevented from reaping benefit from the good things in the
second culture. That is why multiculturalism is promoted as a value.

A genuine exposure to at least two cultures can be the first step on the

road to a transcultural education, because it undermines the assumption
that there is only one way to see the world. But more is needed.

(b) Obtaining an international common core

The second thing that transcultural education is not, is learning an

international common core. Some approaches to transcultural education
suggest that it may be possible to identify a set of common learnings in the
major disciplines which can be presented to all students, alongside of
studies more specific to their parental and indigenous cultures. This is a
good thing to attempt. Enough is known about curriculum design and
mastery learning to develop some credible syllabuses and standards.

This is a good move, but it is not necessarily transcultural education.

It is cross-cultural, in a sense different from the previous two-cultures
policy, but it may not be trans-cultural. For one thing, the very idea of
packaging knowledge in separate academic disciplines is a distinctively
Western way of structuring reality. It is not necessarily a neutral policy, or
a Christian one.

Secondly, few Western schools invite their students to question the

validity of what is taught them in the core subjects. This material is

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usually treated as fact, which is cultural dogmatism. If the critical
dimension is missing, then it is not transcultural education.

What it is

So then, what is transcultural education? It is an education which

enables individuals to transcend their own cultural conditioning, to the
extent that they achieve a level of informed and sensitized objectivity
towards it which maximizes their ability a) to construct their own social
reality, b) to make their own well-considered choices about what to believe
and how to behave, and c) to accept full personal responsibility for those
choices.

Some Christians fear that children raised to this level of self-

awareness may choose to move away from their parents' faith. But it is the
whole point of our earthly apprenticeship to take personal responsibility for
this very choice.

Christ himself demanded it of those who sought to follow him. The

New Testament witnesses to the fact that because Jesus was so insistent on
personal autonomy at this level, many "turned back and no longer followed
him." If we prefer to keep our children in conditioned conformity, then we
have substituted possessiveness for love.

Like the people of Christ's time, we live in a pluralistic society. Some

missionaries know so little about the world views and values of the people
they are seeking to evangelize that all they can communicate is a
stereotyped gospel message overlaid with cultural biases of which they are
unaware. Transcultural education is essential for the missionary of today
and tomorrow.

How it can be achieved

How is it to be achieved? One answer is to give priority to those areas

of study which assist individuals to understand the cultural influences they
have come under, and to develop a capacity for the independent critical
evaluation of belief claims and value systems, including Christianity
itself

.

This suggests, for example, that studies of human culture, such as

literature, history, the arts, religious studies, geography, economics, and

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politics, should include segments of study which examine culture as such,
and the ways in which ethnic groups construct their social reality. Methods
for developing this kind of transcultural critique may be borrowed from
such disciplines as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and comparative
religion.

Secondly, the teaching of all subjects should include times when the

models of explanation used in those subjects are studied in their own right.
In the teaching of science, for example, some attention should be given to
the history of science, illustrating the importance of abstract models in
guiding research, and the differences between theory and fact.

Thirdly, the Bible should be taught not just as unquestionable truth,

but as a reasonable appeal to the thinking person, so that the assent of
learners is gained by teaching them to study the meaning the text had for its
original hearers, to consider how its truth is to be applied to contemporary
realities, and to compare evidences for its reliability with claims made on
behalf of scriptures that are cherished by other religions. The Bible is the
pre-eminent source of a transcendent perspective on all cultures.

Making Transcultural Education A Reality

Our last task is to identify some of the factors to be taken into account

in making transcultural education a practical reality.

The time variable

First, we must not be intimidated by the time factor. It matters not at

all if, in order to meet the higher objectives of both multicultural and
transcultural study, it proves difficult to bring an expatriate child to the
stage of completing school requirements by the age of eighteen. Parents
should be prepared, if necessary, to put their post-school children into a
junior college or further education center in the home country for a year or
two, to undertake the make-up studies which will enable them to obtain a
good placement in an institution of higher education, if that is what they
want. Far better to do this than to mortgage all the years of schooling to
such a distant objective, at the cost of dislocation to the stable domestic
relationship they need.

The content variable

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Secondly, it bears repeating that the aim of developing a transcultural

perspective is not subject-specific. It can be fulfilled through the teaching
of many different bodies of content. It can be achieved in the study of
history, for example, though that history may be the history of France, or
Africa, or New Guinea, or whatever.

Therein also, of course, lies the danger. Since transcultural education

is not subject-specific (though I would always want to see biblical studies
included), there is a risk that it will disappear down the cracks. A teacher
given a geography syllabus may easily slip into an authoritarian mode of
teaching, overlooking the potential of that subject to encourage
transcultural awareness and independent thought.

There is a need to write specific objectives and to identify teaching

methods which will contribute particularly to the realization of this aim,
and then to provide in-service training and supervision for teachers so that
they will actually implement them. Traditional teaching usually falls below
these requirements, because teachers themselves have rarely been
encouraged to develop a transcultural perspective. If the only available
teachers are inexperienced ones who have not mastered basic classroom
skills in a familiar environment, they will need careful briefing and
supervised internship.

Alternative study modes

Alternative modes of study should be considered. The school

classroom is rarely used to get much beyond information transfer. There
are other ways of studying, particularly for the older student who can work
more independently.

Learning also occurs through praxis, that is, an initial act of

reflection, followed by some form of practical action or implementation, on
which one then reflects further, leading to modified action, and so on. This
is particularly relevant to inter-cultural communication and to acts of
service.

Assessment and accreditation

Fourthly, there is the question of assessment and accreditation. We

are far too intimidated by the accreditation requirements of our home

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countries. There are many ways in which home country requirements can
be met while providing a curriculum which is genuinely multicultural and
transcultural in effect, and missionary administrators should expand their
horizons in this regard. In any case, the educational assessment that really
matters is that which occurs within each school, where the child is known.

An International Institute for Curriculum Development

Fifthly and lastly, an adequate understanding of contemporary real-

ities requires global dialogue. An International Institute for Curriculum
Development should be developed, dedicated to drawing on existing
syllabuses and resources to create outlines and materials which foster all
four of the cultural elements I have identified.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have explored two main theses. First, transcultural

education is not just cross-cultural education, but a style of learning which
enables one to transcend one's own cultural conditioning and respond to
God in a truly autonomous way. This is an appropriate and Christian goal
for the education of all children, but especially for the children of
missionaries and other expatriates. Why for the latter? Because we have
here a most exciting potential resource for the kingdom of God.
Expatriates have the potential to become world citizens, rising above the
parochialism of their parents, because they have been educated in a
multicultural milieu and equipped with a level of awareness which enables
them to disentangle the eternal good news from the mores of all the
cultures they encounter.

Abridged, with minor editing, by permission from Journal of

Christian Education

(Australia), April 1992.

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31.

Foundation Stones
of Transcultural Education

Ollie Gibbs

An Introduction to "Foundation Work"

Over the years, as I have watched Christian ministries in the United

States and around the world, I have been fascinated with one thing in
particular. Concern with the visible, with the superstructure, often means
the foundation has been forgotten.

When Solomon was given the phenomenal task of building God's

temple of surpassing beauty, he first considered the foundation, the quality,
the hard stone, the hewed stone which went into God's building. Here are
three foundation stones for biblical transcultural education.

The starting point is this: A philosophy of education from a

Christian perspective is based upon the authority, the authenticity, and
the reliability of the Bible as the complete and final revelation of God
concerning all matters of faith, truth, and practice.

It is upon that

Scripture that I build the foundations for transcultural education.

Stone One: The Universal Nature of the Gospel

In addition to the fact that Jesus Christ came to save all humankind,

another element needs to be looked at in considering this topic. The
universal nature of the gospel message is a transplantable lifestyle that is
the result of the gospel message of Christ.

The transplantable lifestyle should be part and parcel of the educa-

tional program. For example, we tend to rank certain races as superior or
inferior or more important than others. Yet Jesus never classified races.
There was no respecting of persons; all races were treated equally. That
transplantable lifestyle is the result of the universal nature of the gospel.
Sometimes we focus so much on salvation we totally miss the teachings--
by way of direct teaching or by example--that our Lord was
communicating to us regarding this transplantable lifestyle. Since this has
not been articulated well it has produced cultural isolationism.

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One of the best ways to communicate this transplantable lifestyle is

through curriculum. There needs to be a way to ensure that this universal
nature of the gospel message reaches home in the curriculum --both in the
hidden and the written curriculum. Written curriculum is what is put down
on paper, which we are used to working with. Hidden curriculum is taught
by example or practice within the school and not necessarily written.

In the development of curriculum, there are three basic sources:

·

the subject matter itself--what is typically taught in the field;

·

the society from which we operate; and

·

the needs of the particular student.

As these three sources are balanced in light of their generalities and

their particularism, we put together some tentative objectives. They are
tentative only because they must be filtered through our philosophy of
education and our psychology of human development--what we believe
about those children we teach and what we believe about why we are
teaching--to form general objectives.

From that point on, we move to determining:

·

what learning experiences to place before the children,

·

how to organize those experiences,

·

how to implement those experiences,

·

how to evaluate those experiences.

As the biblical foundation block interacts with each component of this

particular model, the universal nature of the gospel permeates the
curriculum that is placed before our children.

In working through the curriculum, general objectives can be formed

that reflect the universal nature of the gospel of Christ. This task demands
a good understanding of the subject area and the people around us, as well
as a good understanding of the Word of God, in order to reflect the
universal nature of the gospel in the educational process.

Stone Two: A Global Frame of Reference

The American cartoon character Pogo was in the midst of battle and

it didn't look like Pogo had much of a chance at all. As he stood there with
all of the troops around him, he exclaimed, "We are in the midst of

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insurmountable opportunities!" That's an interesting perspective. We are
in the midst of

insurmountable opportunities.

The development of a global frame of reference is a Christian world

view that strives to make the well-being of all people a primary value. To
have a global frame of reference requires that our educational process be
developed in light of the world as a multicultural entity. While there is a
common humanity, there are genuinely different ways of thinking,
speaking, and valuing. It is a challenge for parents to communicate to
children that just because other people do it different that does not mean it
is wrong.

For instance, consider the whole matter of schooling. We could move

to any part of the world and find a schooling process, but the schooling
process differs greatly from one part of the world to another. It is a frame
of reference that is global in scope, but it is uniquely different and valued
differently from culture to culture.

Another example of the complexity in developing a transcultural

education that is global in scope can be seen by looking at one of the Ten
Commandments. We are to honor our father and mother. The way in which
that honor was practiced in biblical times is certainly different from the
way in which it is practiced today. And the way in which honor is practiced
today differs from culture to culture, in such things as age of children, life-
styles of children, and taking care of the elderly. So something that seems
as simple as one of God's commandments to honor your parents becomes
highly complex within different cultures.

Biblical moral directives have to be treated with very careful

consideration, because on one hand they are dealing with cultural rela-
tivities and on the other hand they are dealing with spiritual universalities.
That is what is meant by global frame of reference: factors of cultural
relativity on one hand and spiritual universality on the other hand. A global
frame of reference is necessary to the development of a biblical
transcultural philosophy of education.

Each person and all cultures can

learn from and contribute to each other. It is imperative that we become not
only listeners to, but learners from, all people: people who sometimes we
think are strange, inferior, and even as our enemies. Without global
perspective, we will not reflect the universality of the gospel message.

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Stone Three: Global Understanding and Particularism

Curriculum is a pathway. The root word from which the term curric-

ulum

comes means to run a race, to run a course, to be a part of a path, to

go somewhere. The curriculum can represent a multitude of priorities: the
priorities of the institution, of the supporting mission, a disciplinary point
of view, or any number of other issues. A biblical, transcultural philosophy
of education is not bounded by any of those particular issues; it transcends
them.

Sometimes schooling is treated as an attempt to give all information

on all subjects to our children. We eventually come to the point where
everything becomes essential. It starts snowballing and eventually nothing
is accomplished because we cannot teach everything to all of our children.
That is what is meant by a global frame of reference in tension with
content particularism.

Look at teaching history for example. It is impossible to teach the

history of all of our countries and all time periods to our students. So what
do we do? We make selections on what to emphasize. That is content
particularism. But is that content particularism in light of a global frame of
reference? No. They are arbitrary choices. Let me give some possibilities of
teaching it from that perspective.

I think we could assume that all cultures of all times have experienced

political and leadership changes. It is a commonality, part of a global frame
of reference common to all cultures and nationalities.

All cultures at one time or another have experienced war. They have

all experienced economic difficulties. They have all developed treaties or
some types of relationships to maintain peace. There is a global frame of
reference. The development of a transcultural biblical education is to
identify the global frame of reference within the content areas.

Then there is the matter of content particularism. There are always

content choices that must be made. There are certain areas of history that
must be prioritized. They are part and parcel of all the knowledge, but they
are tied together by the global frame of reference.

In the process of putting together curriculum, consider that we only

have children so much time during a day, a week, or a year. We struggle
with what to include and what not to include within the academic area.

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Then we struggle with other areas as to how much time they get. That is the
tension. We must make those hard choices within the global frame of
reference that reflects the universal nature of the message of God. That is
what is meant by biblical, transcultural education.

The Apostle Paul as a Model

The work of the apostle Paul illustrates the interaction between a

global frame of reference and particular content. The ministry of the
apostle Paul was to communicate the gospel of Christ to the world, and that
permeates Paul's journeys and his writings. It is a true global frame of
reference from which he operated. Now consider the book of 1 Timothy.
Paul gave Timothy all sorts of instruction on shepherding the local flock--
content particularism. The global frame of reference was communicating
the gospel to the world, but his content particularism was shepherding a
local flock.

Take another example, the book of Romans, which is an apologetic.

Different audience, different students, different time, different society, and
the content particularism changed. The global frame of reference did not
change. The content particularism dovetailed beautifully into the global
frame of reference that embraced the universality of the gospel of Christ.

Much of schooling and curriculum today is very fragmented. It is

totally at the whim of the person in charge: the teacher, the administrator,
the mission board, and the supporting organization. In addition, the
selections are often very limited. Because of that, I would like to suggest
three challenges.

Developing a Biblical, Transcultural Filter

The way we teach and the way we administer our schools are reflec-

tions of our training and our experiences. If we do not filter properly, then
we tend to do what we were taught. Issues of staff development, classroom
management, residence program, school policy, and curriculum are all
handled according to where we were before or the way we were taught,
without reflection on what we are doing in light of a transcultural biblical
philosophy. We must put the filters in place. I put the transcultural filter

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first--those issues that characterize the transcultural mindset--to filter out
of our thinking all that does not fit.

Then we allow the Word of God to filter out what is contrary in terms

of the very abundance of our hearts, for it is out of the abundance of the
heart that we speak and we operate. These two filters help us reflect
ministries that are both transcultural and biblical in their perspective. The
challenge before us is to consciously develop the filtering systems through
reading, and discussion, and putting them into place in our own lives,
activities, and schools.

Balancing Open-Mindedness and Doctrine

One of the greatest challenges facing modern Christianity is the

separation of human traditions from God's directives. It is the separation
of what people have said and what God has said. I think the two have
become so intertwined that sometimes they become indistinguishable.
Because we have mixed the two together, we are unable to develop a global
frame of reference that reflects the universal nature of the gospel of Christ.
We have become bounded by our own traditions, whether they are within
our church, our organization, or our culture.

Developing a philosophy of biblical transcultural education requires

that we recognize the great diversity that exists in God's people. We begin
with the Word of God: it is the rule of practice for all that we do. It is
authentic, it is inspired, it is reliable. The doctrines of the faith are
unchallengeable, but there are great differences of opinion among the
various teachers. If we do not seek to understand and recognize the
differences, we will become isolationists in our educational programs
because we are unwilling and unable to view the diversity God has created.

Implementation

The final challenge is implementing a biblical and transcultural

philosophy of education. The task that stands before us is to take the steps
necessary for our school programs--both written and hidden--to be
reflective of the universal nature of the gospel message. To make our
school curriculum--hidden and written--reflective of a global frame of

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reference that is common to all people. To make our school curriculum --
written and hidden--reflect a content particularism that is responsive to the
needs of society around us and to the students to whom we minister in that
host culture.

The Challenge:

To implement within our respective content areas,

our administrative roles, and our school as a broad entity,

the universal nature of the gospel message.

To have a global frame of reference with a content particularism

that draws us together within the diversity

and the uniqueness that God made.

It is a challenge. As Pogo said, we are standing in the midst of

insurmountable opportunities.

Adapted with permission from World Report, April 1991.

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32.

Building a Conceptual Framework for

Transcultural Education

Peter and Jan Blackwell

Peter:

My own education is an Australian one. I have spent the last

twenty-five years in the United States administering a school for the deaf.
The fact that it's a school for the deaf is only related to the nature of the
institution rather than to the issue of curriculum. The questions of
curriculum are the same kinds of issues that anyone deals with in the
matter of school structure. Jan is principal of the Cranston Christian
Academy, so in this presentation we will be sharing our experiences in
struggling with aspects of curriculum at a very broad level.

There are great changes taking place in education in Europe. Great

Britain, France, Scandinavia and the Netherlands are doing considerable
thinking about the whole process of their educational programs. Japan
and other Asian countries are going through similar experiences. Asia is
changing rapidly in many ways. I recently participated in a seminar with
twenty-five Japanese educators, and we found them struggling with many
of the same issues, trying to meet the diversity of their population. They
are aware that the Japanese educational system has primarily been focused
on the needs of just one segment of their population.

In developing a curriculum that is transcultural, I believe we need the

foundation of a conceptual curriculum. It is similar to the point that Ollie
Gibbs (Chapter 31) makes for the global framework of knowledge. He
suggests that rather than the specifics of a particular history being the goal
of the curriculum, we should consider a large framework that has some
universal concepts behind anyone's history. If I asked you what is the
history of the United States, or Tasmania, or any other country we might
refer to, we are inevitably tied to facts. We are either right or wrong; the
facts are either there or they are not there. Students either know the
information or they don't.

This factual approach to history and other subjects is the most

common curriculum. However, when we are trying to meet the needs of

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several nationalities, a factual curriculum does not work, or the school is
faced with the problem of providing several factual curriculum outlines.

I can change my earlier question from "What is the history of the

United States?" to a more general perspective or a conceptual question
such as, "From what you know about history, what might be true of the
history of the United States or Tasmania--or anyone's history?" Then the
answer is not a set of facts, but a set of ideas or concepts that can be
applied generally to the history of nations.

· There may have been indigenous peoples there at an early time.

· They may have been conquered by other people.

· There may have been several conquests throughout its history.

· There were probably periods of war.

· The nature of government may have changed more than once

throughout its history.

· There were most likely great leaders that emerged in its history.

· The history of the country has been preserved and honored in

monuments, epics, songs, and art.

The essence of this approach to curriculum development is to help

build in the student's mind a construct of generalizations which can be
brought to new information and to new situations.

To develop the conceptual framework, we need to have more than one

set of information. To establish a general concept of history there should
be at least three different histories, so that patterns of comparison and
contrast can be defined. The classroom with several nationalities
represented will, in fact, be a help to this kind of curriculum approach. The
multiplicity of ethnic groups within the school is an advantage rather than a
disadvantage. This recognition of the larger picture should cause us to be
constantly examining the ethnocentric nature of the curriculum we are
using.

For example, the food groups is a part of everybody's curriculum. We

learn about proteins and carbohydrates, and so on. In looking at my
school's curriculum recently that I realized that when studying this topic
that under starches, we listed potatoes, rice, and bread. But while we

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studied many other cultures, we did not include the diets of these various
peoples that we had studied. All people need a balanced diet. That is a
conceptual statement. Where do the Kang Gang peoples of the rain forest
get their starch? Do the Inuit have starch in their diet? If there are
countries of the world where there are deficiencies in the diet structure, then
there are problems with health, and the implications of all of that are
enormous. Is that a part of the curriculum?

Jan and I want to illustrate the conceptual curriculum. Jan will talk

about Grade 1 and her experience in the development of the curriculum.

Jan:

My role here is largely to speak as a teacher to other teachers.

When I first came across the conceptual approach to teaching, the big
question in my mind was, "How does one go about doing this?" I expect
that you are asking that same question. I will share how I go about putting
together a curriculum. My hope is that you will be encouraged to go back
and do some of the same things.

Four Requirements

I'd like to encourage you as teachers to consider four significant

components if you're going to utilize a conceptual approach to teaching.
Firstly, you must be a learner yourself. If you're excited about a topic
which you are researching and learning, and you impart that to students,
they will be excited about it. Excitement is infectious.

Second, I would encourage you to be knowledgeable about res-

ources in your area.

You need to consult libraries and contact your

resource centers if they are available. You need to find out what other
missionaries are good at and how can they contribute to the school program
or to your curriculum. Local people are a wonderful resource. In my
school, the best resources that I have had for comparing cultures have been
people from other cultures: parents, students at local universities, people
in the church. We have used them extensively, and it has been profitable
for us as a school and for them as well.

Third, I would like to encourage you as teachers to be knowledgeable

about the age group that you are teaching.

There is a tremendous

amount of information available on the developing child, both at the
elementary level and at the middle school level. There are organizations

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that specifically deal with middle school populations, how they are unique,
and how they are different from elementary and high school. We need to
read that material.

Fourth, if you are going to jump into trying to prepare a conceptual

curriculum, you need to be prepared to take responsibility for the
curriculum.

The conceptual approach does not come in a nice, neat

package. You are going to come away with a lot of ideas and things to do.
Peter and I are willing to share what has worked well for us. We can share
the concepts, but you need to go back and take ownership for the
curriculum. That will be your responsibility.

How do we get started? How do we go about developing a conceptual

approach? I will share the way I am comfortable with, but is not the only
way.

Conceptual Goals

The very first thing is to set some conceptual goals. I like to think of

these conceptual goals as a global frame of reference, because they are
going to provide a framework for everything else that is taught. All the
subject areas will be integrated within the framework of these conceptual
goals, and the units will be organized accordingly. They must be first and
foremost in your mind.

At the first grade level, we want to acquaint the children with how

children and families live in other cultures. We have a set of concepts for
our children to be familiar with by the end of the year. We want to be able
to talk about a culture that they have not studied, think about that culture,
and predict factors about that culture--without having studied it.

1. The world is made up of continents and countries.

2. People in different countries have distinct physical characteristics.

3. All people have the same basic needs of food, clothing, shelter,

and a sense of belonging, but people in different countries have
different kinds of food, clothing, and shelter.

4. All people use language, but not all languages are the same.

5. Most people play, but games are different from country to country.

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6. Most people have religious beliefs, but there are different beliefs

and different ways to express those beliefs.

Having established this set of concepts, I think about units of study

that will help teach them. The second concept, for instance, talks about
different people having different characteristics. I might first choose an
Asian culture to teach about. The next is possibly a Hispanic culture such
as Mexico. The third might be an African culture. I have studied Nigeria
in the past because I have several Nigerian families in my school. This
year, I may go back and study Kenya, having learned something about this
culture. Last, every year at our school we include an ancient culture study,
and we do the biblical literature along with that. For the first grade, our
ancient culture happens to be Egypt, so we study the life of Moses.

This year I had a boy from Indonesia in my classroom. I knew

nothing about Indonesia. But I thought it would be helpful and fun to
study a culture that affirmed his cultural background and helped the other
children in the class understand him. So I chose to study Indonesia.
Another family had come from the Cape Verde Islands. Their daughter
was in my class, and I knew nothing about the Cape Verde Islands either.
But I thought it would be interesting to teach about their culture. I also had
a little boy in my class whose father was from Africa, so my African
culture was in place. And the last one was the biblical culture--Egypt and
Moses. I chose those four.

In order for you to get a little better idea of the comparing and

contrasting, and the integration of subject areas within the framework, it
may be helpful to go through a yearly overview. I usually prepare these in
the summer.

Having established the four units of study to be covered, I plan my

first unit. It is the Asian unit, the family in Indonesia. The geography that
is pertinent are the continents of the world, the islands of Indonesia, what
an island is, and the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Social Studies will include
what is it like to live in Indonesia, what people wear, what they eat, what
kind of homes they live in, the games they play, and what language is used.
In science, we did some observations of the properties of matter (related to

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a science text), agriculture, plant properties, parts of plants, how plants
change, and plant parts as food.

The yearly outline then is as follows:

The Child and Family in Other Societies: Conceptual Statements

1.

The world is made up of continents and countries.

2.

People in different countries have distinct physical char-

acteristics.

3.

All people have the same basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and

a sense of belonging. People in different countries have different
food, clothing, and shelter.

4. All people use language but not all languages are the same.

5. Most people play but games are different from country to

country.

6. Most people have religious beliefs but there are different beliefs

and different ways to express those beliefs.

UNITS

An Asian Family in Indonesia
A Portuguese Family in the Cape Verde Islands
An African Family in Nigeria
An Ancient Egyptian Family

UNIT ONE: AN ASIAN FAMILY IN INDONESIA

Geography:

The continents of the world
The islands of Indonesia
What is an island?
The Pacific and Indian Oceans

Social Studies:

What is it like to live in Indonesia?
What do the people wear?
What do the people eat?
What kind of homes do the people have?
What games do the people play?

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What do the fathers, mothers, and children do?
What religion do the people have?
What languages are used and what games do the people play?

Science:

Observing and describing
What are some properties?
Sorting into groups
Indonesian agriculture
Plant properties
Parts of plants
How do plants change?
Looking inside a seed
Where can you find seed?
How do seeds travel?
Planting bulbs

Reading:

Big books and chart stories
Literature: Tales from Southeast Asia
Why There Are No Tigers in Borneo

The Meeting Pool

(A collection of tales from Borneo)

Folk tales from Indonesia

Bible:

A book of proverbs for the family
We will learn Psalm 100

Project:

We will carve boats and float them around islands
We will make Indonesian flags
We will dress up in clothing from Indonesia
We will build an Indonesian home

Field Trip:

Lunch at an Indonesian restaurant

UNIT TWO: A FAMILY IN THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS

Geography:

The continent of Africa
The country of Portugal in Europe

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The Cape Verde Islands
The Atlantic Ocean

Social Studies:

What is it like to live on the Cape Verde Islands?
Foods
Clothing
Homes
Religion
Work
Music, art, and games

Bible:

We will learn Psalm 8
Science:

Oceanography
Most of the Earth is oceans
Oceans are environments for living things

Reading:

Seesaw and Merry-Go-Round

Literature:

We will invite Len Cabral, a well known storyteller of Cape Verd-

ian descent, to come to our school.

Folk Tales from the Cape Verde Islands by Len Cabral

(NHO Lobo #410 Yellow Moon Press)

Music:

Songs and chants from the Cape Verde Islands

Projects:

How clothes come from sheep
Weaving
We will build a Cape Verde home

UNIT THREE: AN AFRICAN FAMILY IN NIGERIA

Geography:

The continent of Africa and its many countries

The Atlantic Ocean

Social Studies:

What is it like to live in Nigeria?
Foods

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Clothing
Homes
Arts and crafts
Religion, festivals, games, languages

Science:

The world is made up of living and nonliving things
There are many kinds of living things (people, plants and animals)
Living things exhibit basic similarities
Living things have basic needs (food, shelter, and coverings)
Living things change through time

Bible:

Psalm 117

Reading and Literature:

African folk tales
Anansi stories
Elephant Boy

Why Do Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears?

Bimwilli and the Zimwi
Moja Means One

Congo Boy

Ashanti to Zulu

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain

I Am Eyes: Ni Macho

Projects:

We will make African masks
We will build an African home
We will prepare some African meals
We will tie dye dashikis

Field Trip:

Rhode Island School of Design Museum--The African Art

Exhibit

UNIT FOUR: A FAMILY IN ANCIENT EGYPT

Geography:

The Nile River
The Red Sea

Building a Conceptual Framework

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The Sinai Desert
The Mediterranean Sea

Social Studies:

Ancient life in Egypt: homes, food, clothing and means of

transportation

We will play Senet, an ancient Egyptian game
Roles in the Egyptian culture: farmers, hunters, fishermen, writers,

painters

The power of the pharaoh in contrast to the powerless slave
Polytheism of the Egyptians, life after death concept, burial rites,

mummies and the pyramids

Hieroglyphics

Science:

Motion, friction, force and simple machines (in the context of the

building of the pyramids)

Irrigation along the Nile

Bible:

The Life of Moses
The exodus of the Israelites from Egypt
We will learn the five books of the Pentateuch
We will celebrate Passover
We will learn Psalm 136:116

Reading:

The Lyon Bible Stories on the life of Moses
Enid Blyton's series on Moses in Egypt

Literature:

In Search of Tutankhamen

Pharaohs and Pyramids

(Time Traveler Books}

The Pyramids

(David McCauley)

Hieroglyphics for Fun

An Egyptian Town

Mummies Made in Egypt

Exodus

(Miriam Chaikin, Holiday House, NY)

Projects:

We will bury a Pharaoh
We will make bricks from straw and mud
We will write using hieroglyphics

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Field Trip:

Rhode Island School of Design Museum, to see a real mummy

A reminder here is that although we have been studying these very

interesting topics, the goal of the teaching is not merely to learn about
Indonesia, Cape Verde, Nigeria, and Egypt. We want to understand that the
people studied all have language, but the languages they speak are not the
same; that they all have ways of celebrating or playing, but their
celebrations and play differ from culture to culture. The real test, then, is if
we were to put up some pictures of a group of people in Brazil, the children
could make some predictions about the people without knowing even who
they are or where they live. "They will speak a language. I wonder what
language they speak?" "They probably will have a religion?" and so on.

We have found that the conceptual curriculum has adapted well to the

educational goals reflected in the curriculum guidelines of Israel,
Scandinavia, China, and the Netherlands, so we have no doubt that it can
make a contribution to a transcultural approach to the multinational
missionary school.

Based on a presentation made at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

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33.
Nurturing Our Students'
Native Languages

Anne-Christine Marttinen

Contact, especially linguistic contact, is a basic human need.

Linguistic contact is a key to the minds and behavior of other people. When
using their native language people not only communicate words, but also
emotions as well as the roots and culture of their people.

Language, Identity and Self-Esteem

When a child arrives in a new country and is confronted by a new

culture as well as a foreign language, he has to re-establish his personality
in order to explain himself and to be accepted. This means that he has to
communicate skills and knowledge as well as emotions.

Children benefit from learning several languages. Some experts say

that a child can cope with three different languages without much
difficulty. This is evident in bilingual homes where the child naturally
speaks one language with his mother, another language with his father and
perhaps a third language at school.

Children should be encouraged to speak the local language of the

country where they reside, but not at the expense of their native tongue.
The child needs solid support from parents and other adults who can help
and encourage coping and interpretation of life in a new country. It is also
the task of parents as well as teachers to prevent excessive stress and to
help the child preserve his national identity, language, and culture. A strong
sense of heritage and cultural identity gives the child a feeling of personal
worth.

The self-esteem of the child depends on his or her ability to

communicate in a meaningful way. When this ability is disturbed, the child
becomes easily frustrated.

No English = No Intelligence

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Many non-English-speaking children have found themselves in

frustrating situations both at school and in boarding homes. They have
been confronted with language imperialism. The school demands that the
child learn the school language as fast as possible. Therefore the staff
discourages the use of the child's native tongue. (Not long ago, the same
thing applied to deaf children. They were physically punished if they used
sign language instead of lip reading.) If the child is unable to use his or her
native tongue, the result is being deprived of emotional outlets in situations
when support is essential.

Too many parents trust the expertise of the school and its staff.

Consequently, they do not rush to rescue their children and
demand for them the right to use their native language. There have been
cases where children have been pressured to stop using their own medium
of communication by teachers who have threatened not to promote
students to the next grade if they studied their own language. Children have
also had to take foreign language intelligence tests which were then used to
determine their grade placement in school.

It is not unusual for children to be ridiculed for deficient language

skills. It is also true that many individuals harbor the shared illusion that a
child is lacking in mental ability because of a lack in language ability.
When a child does not have words for emotions, he or she tends to
compensate by adopting acting-out behavior. This can lead to isolation,
aggressiveness, and learning difficulties. The child reacts by developing
symptoms such as headaches, stomachaches, urinary infections, and bed-
wetting, to mention only a few. Some children feel so put down by these
attitudes that they bluntly refuse to learn the new language. Com-
municating in one's own tongue and compensating in sports or music are
positive outlets for these emotions. They not only put the child at ease, but
motivate to functioning in a new language.

Panicking Parents

The worst thing that can happen to children in this situation is for

their parents to abandon the use of their native language in order to help
them quickly adapt to the language used in the new school or country.
When people communicate in a foreign language, their vocabulary for

Nurturing Our Students' Native Languages

317

endearment is limited, they use fewer physical signs, and are more limited
in their expressions of emotions. If parents use a foreign language when
they speak to their child, the relationship between parent and child suffers.
Parents should not panic, act shortsightedly, or abandon the use of their
native language just to solve a temporary problem. Their children may have
a thousand and one reasons for why it is not necessary for them to continue
studying their native language. They may say, "We will never use it in the
future," or "We will be studying overseas and not at home." Parents should
preserve their common sense while listening to the gripes and complaints
of the offspring. They should also remember that it is not always possible
for them to provide expensive education in English-speaking countries in
the future.

"International children" are not children who belong everywhere.

They are children who know where they belong, but can easily cope and
communicate in other languages and in other cultures.

Suggestions

Children need a rich language to analyze and understand their

surroundings. The native tongue is emotionally charged because it relates
to feelings and relationships in the speaker's own childhood. A good
command of the native tongue is a necessary basis for learning other
languages. Therefore, it is important that children are instructed in their
native language while they study abroad. There are several possible ways
to accomplish this. Students can 1) attend schools run in the native
language, 2) attend international schools with national boarding homes, 3)
attend international or local schools and receive extra tutoring in the native
language, 4) take special courses in their native language, correspondence
courses, literature, and so on, 5) spend long enough periods of time during
furloughs in schools in their home country to promote language learning,
and 6) have cultural briefings to be combined with each of these options.

Whatever alternative or combination of alternatives is chosen, the

parents and teachers should be aware of the pros and cons of their choice.
They must understand how each alternative affects the student's ability to
pursue further studies either in their home country or abroad. They should
also remember that the person assigned to tutor them in their native

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language is a very important person. The tutor can easily become a
psychological fuse, an information person, a friend, an entertainer, a
garbage bin, a voice and counselor to the student.

On Returning Home

When the child returns to his home country, he is once again forced to

adapt. There is strong pressure on him for achievement. The child is older
now with a greater need and desire to communicate verbally. Moreover,
people expect fluency in his own language. If knowledge of the native
language is insufficient, the adaptation process proves more frustrating
than necessary. All lessons in school turn out to be language lessons and
the child fails to achieve according to mental ability. A child may be
described as less gifted, arrogant or grumpy, immature or hyperactive. The
child develops inflated ideas about himself and his capabilities. If she has
achieved well in her former school, the ridicule she receives is even more
devastating. Some children hate school to the extent that they drop out.

Knowledge, common sense, good planning, patience and, above all,

many supportive adults help to navigate youngsters through these periods
of change to further studies and a meaningful life.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, October

1992.

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34.

Learning the Rules
or Learning the Language?

Marilyn Pool Andreasson

In foreign language teaching, as in other areas of education, there is a

gap between theory and practice which leads to confusion and mis-
understanding when new ideas are introduced in the field. University
researchers tend to spin their theories in a world of ideal students and
classrooms, with little reference to the classroom realities teachers face on
a day-to-day basis. Researchers, primarily concerned with the development
of theory, often cloak their ideas in a language so obscure that only the
initiated can understand the principles underlying their ideas. This makes it
difficult for classroom teachers to evaluate and implement those ideas
which often reach them in the form of what appears to be simply another
fad in foreign language teaching.

Key Questions in Foreign Language Instruction

The purpose of this article is to attempt to bridge the gap between

theory and practice by looking at a recent trend in foreign language
education, broadly known as "communicative language teaching," in terms
of the theories on which it is based and some practical applications for the
classroom teacher. Communicative language teaching, like all other
approaches to foreign language teaching, proposes answers to two basic
questions. What does it mean to know a language? What is the most
effective way to teach a language? It is necessary to look at the way this
approach answers those questions in order to evaluate its contribution to
the needs of real students and teachers.

Communicative language teaching is the third major trend in foreign

language teaching to appear in the twentieth century. In order to understand
its assumptions about language learning, we will compare them to the
assumptions made by other major approaches: grammar-translation and
audio-lingual methods. All three language teaching approaches are based
on the premise that in order to know a language, one must know its
structure, or in the broadest sense of the term, its grammar.

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The Grammar-Translation Approach

This approach assumes that explicit teaching of the rules inEnglish

(or whatever is the mother tongue of the students) is the best way to learn
the structure. Rules are presented, explained, and practiced. The syllabus
moves from one grammar point to another. For example, in the first unit
the regular present tense conjugations may be taught. In the second unit,
the adjectives and one or two irregular verbs are introduced. In the third
unit, question and negation forms are presented. Translation is used
extensively both in instruction and to verify students' progress. Bright and
well-motivated students often achieve quite a high degree of knowledge of
the rules of the language using this method.

However, as one of my best groups of advanced students pointed out

to me, knowing the rules is not the same thing as knowing the language.
They had mastered many rules but were not able to use them accurately or
appropriately when they wanted to communicate in French. This gap
between knowing the rules and being able to use the language is the most
serious criticism leveled at the grammar-translation method. For learners
who want to understand, read, speak, and write in a foreign language, the
grammar-translation method may provide a foundation of knowledge, but it
does little to develop oral communication skills. This limitation led to the
development of the audio-lingual method in the United States during the
1940s and '50s.

The Audio-Lingual Approach

World War II, and later the Cold War, created a need for more

Americans to learn foreign languages in the quickest, most effective way
possible. The audio-lingual method was devised in response to this need.
Based on principles of behaviorial psychology, this method attempts to
drum the structure of a language into students' brains, or in other words, to
make it a habit learned through stimulus-response reinforcement tech-
niques, assuming the best way to teach grammar is not to explain it, but to
drill it. In audio-lingual classrooms, the teacher presents dialogues which
the students memorize and repeat, and conducts pattern drills which
present, manipulate, and reinforce the structure. The emphasis is on
developing oral skills, because in the "natural" order of language learning,

Learning the Rules or Learning the Language?

321

reading and writing follow listening and speaking. In the strictest forms of
the audio-lingual method, translation is forbidden.

When I first encountered this approach to language teaching, I was

astounded at how fluently my students were able to produce certain struc-
tures, without necessarily having learned the grammar rule governing their
use. For example, they said ils sont (they are) or elle est (she is) quite
automatically, whereas students learning French via the grammar-
translation method tended to go through a rather long process in order to
come up with these two forms if they wanted to use them. The process
went something like this: "I want to say `they are.' Are is the verb `to be.'
Let's see, that's the verb etre in French, present tense, the third-person
plural conjugation, so that's je suis, tu es, il est . . . ils sont. There it is.
I've got it. I should use ils sont!"

In contrast, the automatic response produced by the audio-lingual

method seemed impressive. However, as time went on, I found students'
apparent mastery of certain structures seemed to disappear whenever they
were given the opportunity to express themselves creatively in speaking or
in conversation. In addition, they struggled to read authentic texts and
wrote appallingly poor compositions.

The focus of the audio-lingual method, like that of the grammar-

translation method, is on learning grammatical forms first. After students
have had sufficient practice to lead them to mastery of the forms, they are
given the opportunity to use them so that their limitations become
apparent. Mastery of the form, however it is achieved, does not necessarily
lead to an ability to communicate using the language.

The Communicative Language Approach

Faced with this problem in the 1960s and '70s, and quite disillusioned

with the audio-lingual method for failing to deliver on its promises,
researchers and teachers began to reexamine their assumptions about the
language learning process. Though they acknowledged that to know a
language one must know its structure, they also recognized that knowing a
language means being able to use it in meaningful ways. They began to ask
what would happen if language students put meaning, rather than form, in
the foreground.

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These questions, and subsequent research in the fields of psychology,

linguistics, and second-language acquisition, have led to the development
of what has become known as a communicative approach to language
study. This approach, as its name implies, emphasizes the communicative
rather than the structural nature of language. It assumes that knowing a
language means knowing how to use that language appropriately to
communicate in a given context. It also assumes that the best way to learn
to communicate is by communicating. Rather than beginning either by
explaining the grammar or by drilling it, proponents of a communicative
approach argue that the foreign language class should provide students
with opportunities to learn by doing, or more specifically, by engaging in
communicative experiences in the target language.

Communicative experiences can be broadly explained as activities

that involve students in the expression, interpretation, or negotiation of
meaning. For example, a student describing the floor plan of his or her
home is involved in an expression of meaning, which another student
listening to and then attempting to draw that floor plan is involved in the
interpretation of meaning. Any requests for repetition or clarification
involve both students in negotiation. The communicative approach to lang-
uage teaching emphasizes the development of these skills of expression,
interpretation, and negotiation. It focuses on meaning rather than on form,
and the development of formal grammatical knowledge plays a secondary
role in the classroom.

Teaching Methods

As yet, there is no one method of communicative language teaching.

This is partly because theorists are still arguing about the underlying
assumptions, and they hesitate to make the sort of sweeping recommenda-
tions which led to the adoption and then the rejection of the audio-lingual
method. In the meantime, teachers around the world who don't have the
time to wait until the theory is perfected have begun to take these assump-
tions and apply them to their classroom teaching practices.

As a result, there are some identifiable characteristics of communi-

cative language teaching which I would like to outline here. I have drawn
the examples from my own teaching experience.

Learning the Rules or Learning the Language?

323

First, there is a strong emphasis on target language use in the

classroom. The target language (the language which students are learning)
is the primary means of communication between students and their teacher.
English (or the students' mother tongue) is used either to a much lesser
extent or not at all. The classroom itself becomes a context in which
students are able to hear and use the second language meaningfully.

In addition, there is an emphasis on giving students as much input in

the target language as possible. Activities are structured so that students at
all levels have many opportunities to hear or read the language as it is
normally spoken or written in discourse rather than in isolated sentences.
Such input is used as the starting point rather than the culmination of a
lesson because it requires students to focus on interpreting the input while
giving them examples of how the grammar is used to convey meaning.

Second, in the communicative language approach, teaching activities

are structured so that students use the target language as often as possible
to try to communicate meaning to others. They are given many oppor-
tunities to interact using the language they are learning. In some class-
rooms, this means that students work often in pairs or small groups on oral
work because their opportunities to interact with the teacher are limited by
class size. Students are given a clear task to accomplish using the target
language, which motivates their communication. Students may be asked to
conduct a survey by interviewing each other in pairs to find out when they
do certain activities such as watching television, studying, eating meals, or
listening to music. Or, working in pairs, students may be asked to describe
and compare two pictures which are almost identical in order to find the
subtle differences between them, without looking at one another's pictures.

Third, communicative language teaching tends to be task-based

instruction. In other words, teachers look at lesson plans less in terms of
grammar to be covered, and more in terms of tasks which they want
students to accomplish using the language. The focus of the lessons is to
prepare students to do something with the language, rather than merely to
present or practice material. For example, the culminating task for one of
my first units in a second-year class was to respond to a letter ostensibly
written by one of my francophone African friends, Khorotoum, who was
coming to spend a month in the U.S. In her letter, she anticipated the great
differences between the two cultures and asked my students to help her

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prepare by sending her a description of their family, their typical activities,
and their house.

A sequence of tasks, completed over several days, prepared students

to write an answer to her in French. In one of the first lessons I had given
students input about Khorotoum's African family by drawing and discus-
sing her family tree. Students later interacted in pairs, giving their family
trees to one another. On another day, they conducted a survey of typical
activities mentioned above. On yet another day I compared the typical
features of an American house with the African village houses which would
be familiar to Khorotoum. Students also did the floor plan activity I already
mentioned.

I did present some grammar during this unit, but the explanations

were brief, and were given after, rather than before, some of the activities.
This is also fairly typical of communicative language teaching. There is not
a linear progression from grammar point, to practice, to showing how one
can use the rule in speaking or in writing. Instead, class activities move
back and forth from input to interactive tasks, and the teacher stops to
point out grammar rules along the way. Students use the rules all the time,
however, often without being aware of it, as they interpret and try to
express meaning in the context of the tasks they are given to do.

Evaluating the Communicative Approach

It is too soon to pass judgment on the successes and limitations of a

communicative approach to language teaching. There is a growing body of
empirical research which suggests that students need input as well as
opportunities to interact in order to develop communicative skills in the
language they are learning.

Since I have begun using a more communicative approach, I have

found that my students' comprehension of the target language, as well as
their ability to express themselves in speaking and writing, is greatly
improved. Students who have had experience of another method say they
feel they are really learning to use language for the first time. They have
also found the process more stimulating and fun because they are primarily
involved in the expression and interpretation of meaning. They have also
learned a great deal about each other, about me, and about the francophone

Learning the Rules or Learning the Language?

325

world. Critics of communicative language teaching argue, however, that by
emphasizing learning by doing, rather than by teaching or drilling
grammar, accuracy may be sacrificed for fluency.

The argument about the best way to teach a foreign language, whether

by grammar teaching or by a more communicative approach is centuries
old and unlikely to be resolved easily. People recognize that knowing the
rules of a language is not the same as knowing the language, yet one cannot
use a language without applying its rules. An appropriate balance between
rules and use is clearly difficult to maintain.

As a teacher with experience in using each of the above approaches, I

find it important to understand the "why" of what I am doing in the class-
room. It helps me evaluate both the successes and the limitations of my
teaching in a more objective manner.

Reference Books for Foreign Language Teachers

These books are very practical, providing a wealth of ideas for

listening, comprehension, reading, speaking, writing, grammar practice,
and vocabulary development. They also include useful introductions which
give some principles to use as guides in designing tasks. All these books
give examples in English, but they can easily be translated.

General

Nunan, D., Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cam-

bridge University Press, 1989.

Listening

Anderson, A., and T. Lynch, Listening. Oxford University Press, 1988.
Morgan, J., and M. Rinvolueri, Once Upon a Time: Using Stories in the

Language Classroom

. Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Ur, P., Teaching Listening Comprehension. Cambridge University Press,

1984.

Reading

Collie, J., and S. Slater, Literature in the Language Classroom. Cam-

bridge University Press, 1987.

Grellet, F., Developing Reading Skills: A Practical Guide to Reading

Comprehension Exercises

. Cambridge University Press, 1981.

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Maley, A., and A. Duff, The Inward Ear: Poetry in the Language

Classroom.

Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Oral Interaction/Conversation

Klippel, F., Keep Talking: Communicative Fluency Activities for Lang-

uage Teaching

. Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Maley, A., and A. Duff, Drama Techniques in Language Learning.

Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Porter Ladousse, G., Role Play. Oxford University Press, 1987.
Ur, P., Discussions That Work: Task-Centered Fluency Practice. Cam-

bridge University Press, 1981.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, December
1994.

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35.

Second Language Issues for
MKs in National Schools

Cynthia Storrs

Few missionaries forget the day they arrived on the field. It generally

ranks right up there with their first kiss, the day Kennedy was shot, or
learning the truth about Santa, in terms of their recall power. Often equally
accessible in the memory bank of missionaries is the first day of language
study. Regardless of all that mission agencies do to prepare a fledgling
missionary, the first encounter with a new language often arrives like a
punch or a bucket of cold water, even when one has been forewarned and
forearmed.

Meanwhile, observe the missionary kids, our MKs. Having had little

or no preparation, many sail blithely off into preschool, and after some
initial noticeable discomfort, appear to acquire the foreign language as if
by osmosis. No problem--or so it seems. Sometimes there are no prob-
lems; sometimes problems surface later. Sometimes the scope of these
problems is such that the family decides they can no longer stay on the
field. The result is a rupture in the ministry and uprooting of relationships,
accompanied by overwhelming feelings of frustration, guilt, and blame.
What is particularly unfortunate is that some of the problems could have
been avoided, had attention been paid to certain details from the start.

Language Learning and Cultural Adaptation

As a missionary working in MK education, I am totally committed to

second language acquisition and cultural adaptation for the entire
missionary family on all levels. Successful linguistic and cultural adap-
tation have a significant influence not only on the quality of ministry, but
also on the quality of life. However, having worked in a foreign language
church plant project, and having reared and educated two small children
overseas in a foreign language, I am also aware of the demands language
and cultural acquisition make on parents and MKs.

We will address many of the issues involved in MK language and

cultural adaptation, and consider ways to facilitate the process. I believe

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wholeheartedly that MK bilingualism/biculturalism is not only a worthy
goal, but one with benefits that will ultimately outweigh a monolingual
education. But it is also a process which must be undertaken with parental
and community support. We will explore these issues as well, in the hope
of avoiding or minimizing some of the pitfalls traditionally associated with
MK second language learning and culture acquisition.

Methodology

One of the first questions involves methodology: "What is the best

way for MKs to learn a foreign language?" Part of the answer to this
question is linked to two other questions: "Why is the child learning the
language?" and "How old is the child?" If the child is to learn the language
only for conversational purposes, his training is much less complicated,
and simple exposure and interaction in a social situation may suffice. If the
child is learning the language and will be expected to perform on an
academic level with his peers, the demands are much greater, and his
training must reflect this.

The age of the MK should be taken into consideration. Happily, age is

rarely a barrier to language learning. One often hears that after a certain
age, we cannot learn a foreign language. This is simply not true. There is
much research to indicate that after the age of ten or twelve years, the
chances of achieving a native accent are diminished, but learning a
language involves more than just learning an accent. There are advantages
and challenges present for language learners at each stage of life.

As to specific methodology, there are many schools of thought on this

subject, and seemingly little agreement. A few general principles are
probably more helpful than a notion of which language school to subscribe
to. There is much research which indicates that learning a second language
has many similarities with learning our first or mother tongue. The
acquisition of our first language is guided by an innate language ability, a
sort of mindmap, which facilitates its learning. There are a number of
principles we can infer from this. First, acquisition of our first language
will transfer to and help in acquiring a second one. Therefore, it is
imperative that parents not neglect an MK's mother tongue. Missionaries
often debate whether the second language (L2) should be used in the home.

Second Language Issues for MKs in National Schools

329

Certainly, the L2 should be used when other L2 speakers are present, out of
respect for one's guests. Otherwise, parents should be encouraged to do all
they can to foster the native language, for two reasons: first, a child's L2
ability will rarely exceed his ability in the mother tongue, and second, the
home environment may be the only source of input for the mother tongue
an MK has, particularly if he or she attends a national school. The parents
will be the only source of vocabulary and expression, at least until a child
reads, which should also be actively encouraged and modeled by the
parents. A strong mother tongue base will help in L2 acquisition.

Acquiring Language

Another question often raised concerns informal versus formal

language acquisition. Practically speaking, is it of more value to memorize
verbs or to let your child pass the morning wandering in the market? If he
has to pass a test on the verb table, obviously he has to memorize it. But
for general acquisition, both children and adults may learn more and learn
it faster chatting their way through a market place. This approach will
involve them in a task that is both useful and low-stress (or, causing less
stress than a formalized test).

Another axiom is to learn a little, but use it a lot. This is what happens

when we put young children in an L2 nursery school, where they cannot say
much, but they say it often! Older children can achieve the same effect
through sports or music. MKs (and their parents) need to have social times,
informal language experiences, with little pressure put upon them, to test
out the knowledge they have learned in more formal environments.
Formalized schooling often imparts much knowledge, with little
opportunity to use it.

Attitude and Language Learning

Regardless of the specific methodology chosen, a critical factor in L2

acquisition (some would say the critical factor) is attitude. For an MK, this
involves not only his or her personal attitude, but the attitude of his
parents, and the attitude of the L2 speakers around him. I recall sympa-
thizing with my children about their verb tables and (wrongly) agreeing
with a comment like, "Yes, I hate these stupid verb conjugations, too." The

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problem is that I may be communicating something other than sympathy to
my children. If I think the language is impossible and not worthy of my
effort, I am subtlely communicating the same thing about the people who
use these verbs. What I am also communicating to my children is that my
desire to identify with these speakers is very low, and that my attitude
toward them is basically negative. This results in poor L2 acquisition.

Equally important is the attitude of the L2 speakers toward the MK. A

language learner must have a desire to accept, identify with, and imitate the
L2 speakers and their language. However, for successful acculturation to
occur, the L2 speakers must have an equal desire to accept the L2 learner.
Otherwise, for example, social situations, which are desirable places for
informal language practice, will not occur.

On one hand, it is important that missionary parents do everything

possible to make friends with L2 speakers, and encourage L2 friendships
for their children. Whole class birthday parties at the elementary level are a
great way to develop social networks. At the teen level, offering your home
for a hamburger barbeque or coaching a baseball team can be conducive to
informal language practice and developing relationships. It is also advis-
able to try to help a child fit in tangible ways, with similar clothing, school
items, etc., to de-emphasize the cultural differences. The less an MK is
regarded as an outsider, the more likely he or she is to be taken into the L2
inner circle.

On the other hand, parents of MKs should resist the notion of "going

native" by denying or ignoring a child's own linguistic and cultural heri-
tage. Going native may result in the MK facing a loss of identity, some-
thing most language learners experience naturally to a certain extent. If
excessive, a loss of identity will result in feelings of anger and resentment
toward the target culture. If children perceive the L2 and its culture as a
threat to their cultural identity, they will reject the second culture in an
effort to preserve their identity. As language is the salient manifestation of
that culture, this rejection will probably result in poor L2 learning.

What Does Bilingual Really Mean?

We often hear that a certain MK is bilingual. What exactly does that

mean? A balanced bilingual child is one who has age-appropriate abilities
in both languages. Parents and grandparents should not expect that this

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331

will mean that the MK will be as fluent in both languages as a monolingual
child is in either of these languages. Acquiring a new language is a
function of many variables including effort and time. The problem is that
there just are not enough hours in the day for a person to achieve equal
monolingual fluency in two languages. Obviously, a child who spends
sixteen hours a day hearing and interacting in one language will generally
have a greater knowledge of that language, compared to a child who has
only eight hours per day exposure, all other things being equal.

The bilingual child has some advantages over the monolingual child.

Much of the research indicates there are transfers made between languages.
Knowledge acquired in one language will transfer to knowledge and be
expressed as skills in another language. This transfer of knowledge and
skills is known as metacognition, and in some tests, metacognition in
bilingual children has resulted in I.Q. scores which surpass monolingual
children in fluency, flexibility of thought, originality, abstractions, and
problem solving.

Conversational vs. Academic Language Use

However, these advantages will generally require some kind of

parental and academic support. As mentioned above, a distinction can be
made between children who study L2 for solely conversational purposes
versus those who acquire L2 for academic purposes. A four- to
six-year-old child who needs to be conversant in the L2 can probably
achieve a basic interpersonal communication skill level, roughly analogous
to a monolingual child of his same age, with one or two years of social
interaction. However, it will take this same child approximately five to
seven years to achieve a cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP)
analogous to a monolingual child of his age, a level which would be
necessary to successfully complete studies in the L2.

Many teachers who do not have experience with bilingual children are

unaware of this distinction. They will often feel that the young MK is
prepared for further education, judging only on the BICS (basic
interpersonal communicative skills) level. In truth, however, the child will
actually need extra help for a few more years until his or her CALP level is
equal to other L2 monolingual children. Parents need to be aware of this

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discrepancy and recognize that they are probably not able to bridge the
gap. A native L2 speaker can be invaluable in helping an MK deal with
pronunciation, idiomatic expressions, and various ways of solving
problems. This often discourages missionary parents and makes them
want to take their MKs out of national schools. When a child is in the
elementary grades, an L2 high school student is probably more than
competent to help. If a child is older, engaging a professional to tutor him
is probably wise.

However, parents are strongly advised to evaluate these differences

before starting an older child in a second language situation. If a child is
age twelve, the five to seven years necessary for him or her to catch up
academically may not allow him to successfully complete high school.
Meanwhile, the child will possibly suffer emotionally and socially from the
tremendous L2 demands made.

If an MK begins L2 in the lower elementary years, parents should

seriously consider repeating a grade in the second language to allow him or
her to catch up linguistically. In addition, it will give him practice on
content material with which he is already familiar or which was learned
previously in his mother tongue. Fortunately, in most other countries,
repeating a grade is not at all frowned on as it is in the U.S. In fact, it is
often the norm.

Again, there are great advantages to a bilingual education, but

parents must realize it comes with certain demands on the entire family. If
both parents are not willing to make the adjustments necessary to help a
child through a bilingual education, it will probably not be a successful or
happy option for the MK.

What's Our Goal: Bilingual or Bicultural Students?

Finally, it is important to realize that our goal as missionaries and

MKs is to be not only bilingual, but bicultural; many experts feel that the
two cannot be separated. MKs need to learn about their new holidays and
traditions, but not at the expense of their native ones. Both are important,
to give roots in their home culture and wings to fly in their new one. This
can be achieved through many ways without burdening the MK with
additional studies: family reading times, including poetry, folk tales, even

Second Language Issues for MKs in National Schools

333

comic books; folk songs and pop music; stamp and coin collections; na-
tional sports; celebrating all U.S. (and national) holidays; thermometers,
scales, and cookbooks in both languages will teach math and science.

English reading and writing skills should be worked on continuously

through elementary and high schools years, but without being burdensome
to the MK. Some writing skills can be developed through diaries and letters
to family members. Reading in both languages, including Bible studies,
should be encouraged as a family hobby. During high school, there are
many correspondence courses available to help develop English skills. The
MK needs to feel comfortable in both worlds, and the language and
vocabulary associated with each one is important in making a person truly
bicultural.

Although my daughter was only four years old at the time, she

remembers her first day of language study quite distinctly. It was a day in
kindergarten that began with much excitement and ended with many tears!
But she looks back on that memory now and smiles. When asked if all the
trauma, the extra studies, the lists of spelling words in two languages, were
worth it, she responded very positively. "Being bicultural gave me a much
broader perspective on the world," she said. Was it worth it? "Totally!"
And from a California MK, that's about as good as it gets.

Sources

Gardner, R., "On Second Language Acquisition," Social Psychology

and Second Language Learning: The Role of Attitudes and Motivation

(London: Edward Arnold, 1985).

Krashen, S., Principles and Practice in Second Language Acqui-

sition.

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1982).

Schumann, J. "Research on the Acculturation Model for Second

LanguageAcquisition." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Devel-
opment

, Vol. 7, No. 5, pp. 37992.

Baker, C. "On Bilingualism/Biculturalism," Foundations of Biling-

ual Education and Bilingualism

. (Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, Ltd.,

1993).

Baker, C. A Parents' and Teachers' Guide to Bilingualism. (Cleve-

don, Multilingual Matters, Ltd., 1995).

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Cummins, J. "Language and Literacy Acquisition in Bilingual

Contexts." Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development,
1989, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1731.

Larson, D., Learning a Language Again: First Steps in the Bare-

foot Approach

. (Fresno, CA: Link Care Center, 1996).

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, May

1997.

335

36.
Multiple Choice in MK Education

Alan McIlhenny

When I first went to Nepal, I ordered some furniture from the local

carpenter's shop. I thought I had given him clear plans for a kitchen table
and had coped reasonably well using my newly acquired Nepali language
skills. What a disappointment it was when the table was delivered with all
the legs different lengths. I rushed back to the carpenter, determined to
show him how to make a proper table. I was greatly deflated to discover
another table being made in his workshop with the same uneven leg
pattern. The carpenter patiently pointed out that as the mud floor of his
workshop was not level, he always adjusted the leg's lengths to ensure that
every table he made sat straight and square on his floor. His tables were
masterpieces in his workshop, but he seemed oblivious to the fact that they
did not transplant well to other situations.

If we reflect on the process of educating missionary children, we real-

ize that if we use only traditional educational methods, designed to "fit the
floor" of the non-missionary child in a home-country situation, then our
methods may not fully transplant to the rather different floor of the
missionary child. The three ICMKs have clearly identified just how unique
the situation of the missionary child is. I want to discuss the differences
and hope to demonstrate that unique educational methods are necessary.

Educational Philosophy

Before exploring the differences, I want to build a foundation appli-

cable to any school. I will share my educational philosophy so that you
better understand the suggestions I make. My goal for all students is to
help them develop to their fullest potential and individual excellence by
encouraging them to pursue a wide variety of activities with a sense of
personal commitment. I do not want them to be dependent on a teacher's
guidance to obtain knowledge. Instead, I hope to develop in them a thirst
for knowledge and to give them the tools to find this knowledge. I am not
talking just of academic learning, but also of seeking true God-given

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knowledge. I hope, by taking an individual interest in each student, to give
him or her a sense of personal worth.

I want to encourage a sense of purpose within the student body, both

individual and communal. I hope they can balance competitiveness and
ambition with a sense of the worth of others and a concern for their
welfare. I was encouraged when a senior student asked if he and his friends
could set up prayer cells in the school. Now small groups of students are
daily meeting and praying somewhere in the school during breaks and
lunch time.

I hope to develop in them a sense of the world beyond school: the

world of work and the world of need. I have a particular concern here for
missionary children. Sadly, while most of their parents may be very active
in their communities, the children can often become isolated from the
realities of their surroundings. Sometimes the only adult nationals they
relate to are servants in their home or school. What sort of an attitude does
this develop?

Let me start my examination of the uniqueness of these children by

going back to the discussions at the Manila and Nairobi ICMK
conferences.

The Uniqueness of Missionary Children

In Manila, Professor. Brian Hill defined some of the cultural issues

which impact missionary children. He argued that the curriculum of a
school for missionary kids should include studies related to both the
parental culture (of furloughs) and the indigenous culture (of the host
country). The cultural perspective that has the greatest influence on the
child comes from the school's subculture. Yet, have we given much
thought to the influence of the school subculture?

Within our multinational, multidenominational schools, an exciting

opportunity exists. In Manila, Brian Hill challenged us as educators to
grasp this opportunity to open up a Christian world view for our students.
We were challenged to step outside our cultural conditioning, both national
culture and denominational subculture, in order to provide a new
transcultural overview.

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Criteria and Constraints

While I agree with Hill's model, I feel a need to add some practical

considerations. Paul Nelson suggested certain criteria at ICMK-Manila
which should be used in any new educational model: 1) the program must
be practical in terms of finance, expertise required to carry it out, and the
geographic regions involved, 2) the curriculum must be international
enough to meet the needs of the multinational community, 3) it must not be
overdemanding of the parents' time, and 4) the program must meet the
needs of the complex educational system to which children are becoming
oriented and the technological world in which they live.

I added the following constraints in developing the KISC model after

talking with a large number of missionary and expatriate parents: 1) the
system should offer an education of comparable standard, covering the
same range of subjects as are available in the student's home country, 2)
the system should provide a healthy environment for the learner in the
areas of peers, social, and academic interaction, 3) the system should
demand minimal supervision and academic input from parents, 4) the
system should enable the family unit to remain intact for the maximum
period possible each year, 5) the system should allow for the needs of each
learner and take advantage of his or her unique cultural and learning
environment, and 6) the system should allow learners to continue their
studies wherever they may have to travel, particularly during furloughs.

Practical Realities in MK Education

At previous ICMKs we have heard about the problem of re-entry.

This is often a traumatic experience, and it becomes more difficult if the
child does not fit in academically. Parents often plan to return to their home
country when their eldest child reaches the limit of the available
educational option on the field. The eldest child has finished his course of
study, but most likely younger children have not. They may be only
partially through their program, which may be very different from what
their peers are doing in their home country. These younger children will
have a more difficult time during re-entry.

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If re-entry is unplanned, the experience will be even more traumatic

and it is more difficult for the children to fit into schools in their home
country. Therefore, to facilitate re-entry, we need to ensure that our
curriculum matches the home country as closely as possible in content,
order, and pace.

But is this possible in a school which most likely caters to students

from a wide variety of nationalities? Certainly no one country's curriculum
can cope with all these needs. What we really need is a model that offers
multiple choice. We need a model which not only offers a choice between
the British or American systems, but also has something to offer the
children of our Dutch, German, Japanese, Korean, and Scandinavian
brothers and sisters in mission.

The need for specialist or content area teachers is a major problem.

Each year MK school administrators struggle to recruit and retain an
adequate number of staff members to keep their schools operating. We
need an educational model which can survive times of specialist teacher
shortage.

There is a very large specter that looms over certain students,

especially those from Britain, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. That is
the specter of national examinations. Are students going to receive
sufficiently high results on their exams to enable them to enter higher
education at the institution of their choice? The competition for university
entrance is intense in most countries. MKs have to compete with peers at
home who have attended well-equipped schools with subject specialist
teachers and tremendous resources. Dare we expose our children to
anything less than the same? Shouldn't our students be given the
opportunity to study a curriculum which will enable them to pursue their
career choice in the country of their choice? Again, we need a school that
allows for multiple choices.

KISC--The Model

The Kathmandu International Study Center, which opened in February

1987, is my attempt to design a multiple choice system satisfies the unique
needs of MKs. It started five years ago with just eleven students, and now
has more than sixty. We have seven full-time missionary teachers and

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339

receive part-time assistance from parents and friends. I call this the
international supported self-study (SSS) model. This approach started in
the U.K. to cope with teacher shortages and to provide specialized courses
with limited enrollment. SSS is normally used in British schools for just a
few subjects. As far as I know, we are the only school where it is used for
the complete academic core. Other "schools" use correspondence courses
or self-study materials, but please note that the word support plays an
important role in this system. It is not just self-study.

Basically, each student studies his own home country's core academic

curriculum through the medium of supported self-study. The individualized
study is enriched through group activities involving mixed nationalities. At
the heart of this approach lies a management system which balances and
controls three main elements: monitoring student progress, providing
encouragement and motivation, and coordinating enrichment activities.

Materials

Self-study materials are chosen with great care, and at KISC we have

two main sources: complete self-study programs from a correspondence
school, or our own packages consisting of different self-study programs or
suitable textbooks from the student's home country. Our Australian and
New Zealand students use correspondence courses provided by their home
country or state. Our younger American students use materials we have
put together, while students in grade nine and above use materials from the
University of Nebraska. Our British students at younger levels use a
variety of self-study packages we have put together from various sources.
Most of our GCSE program is based on material purchased from Oxford
Open Learning. The majority of students' self-study work is marked at
KISC, but some correspondence schools require that they grade the work.
In addition to the self-study packages, we are gradually building up
additional resources, such as computer software, cassette tapes, and library
books, which can be used by students or teachers to supplement the basic
packages.

Tutorials

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Tutorials are important for success in a self-study program. It is the

exceptional student who can maintain motivation solely through self-study
materials. The majority of school age children need tutorial support. At
KISC, each student has a tutorial session each week in each academic
subject. Ideally, these tutorials take place in groups of five to eight stu-
dents, but some are one-on-one sessions. During the 45-minute session, the
tutor discusses the work that's been done during the previous week, plans
and discusses work for the next week, and then engages in activities of
interest to students in the group. We have found that a good tutorial can
more than compensate a student whose self-study material is of marginal
quality. Beyond the weekly tutorial sessions, students have immediate
access to subject specialists on an individual basis while they are working
on the self-study. We rotate the duty times of teachers in the learning center
so that at some time throughout each day a specialist is available for
consultation.

Enrichment Program

Our students spend about three-sevenths of their time in self-study.

The remainder is spent either in tutorials or group activities. Each student
is allowed to choose at least two of the group "electives" available each
term. The electives we offer depend on the interests of staff or parent
volunteers. Our electives have included art, astronomy, crafts, Chinese
cooking, drama, gardening, home economics, Nepali language, piano, and
woodworking. In addition, there are compulsory group classes in sports as
well as current events and religious education. The latter classes explore
our common Christian world view amid our different nationalities. Each
term we also explore aspects of the fascinating cultural surroundings of
Nepal such as our annual trek into the Himalayas. Our GCSE students had
the opportunity to do their geography coursework on glaciation by actually
visiting a glacier!

Benefits and Results

The fact that KISC students use a self-study program designed around

their home country's curriculum creates two possibilities for furloughs.
They can continue self-study in a home school situation, or attend a local

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341

school knowing that they will not be too out of step with their peers, at
least in terms of curriculum.

This self-study approach enables us to offer two types of attendance

for families who live in remote areas: full-time or part-time boarding. The
part-time boarders may come into school for half the normal ten-week term
and pursue their studies at home for the rest of the term. We have had
students who attended KISC for alternating terms: home-schooling with
their parents for one term, and then boarding at school for the next term.
This system offers flexibility to families who do not like the idea of the
family unit being separated for 40 weeks each year. Families who are
comfortable with the boarding concept can send their children into KISC
for full-time boarding.

The KISC model does not completely solve the problems for

non-English speaking students, but it goes a long way toward solving it.
We have a group of Dutch students who do much of their academic
program using Dutch textbooks. They have a Dutch tutor for their tutorial
sessions and they join other students for enrichment programs in English.
Another benefit of using of self-study material means that if a subject
specialist is unavailable for a time, it is feasible for students to continue
their studies.

Finally, over 80% of our GCSE results have been at the A, B or C

level, well above the British average. Examination results are not the only
measure of success, but I don't know of anyone who has not been able to
enter the school of his choice.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, May

1992.

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37.
Understanding the Needs
of Asian MKs

Polly Chan

Statistics show that during the last ten years the missionary movement

in the two-thirds world has grown approximately five times faster than the
Western missions movement. Because of this rapid growth in missions, the
need to care for the educational needs of Asian MKs has become a pressing
issue.

Educational Needs for Asian MKs

The educational needs for Asian MKs are not much different from

those of non-Asians. Almost all Asian missionary parents hope that their
children can maintain their mother tongue and learn about the culture,
history, and geography of their home country when they are on the mission
field. Besides learning their mother tongue, learning English is also
important. The educational system in some Asian countries such as
Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines is bilingual. MKs from these
countries need to acquire both their mother language and English in order
to fit back into schools in their home countries. Since English is important
in Asia, parents from countries such as Korea, Japan, and Taiwan hope that
their children can learn English well.

In the past, very little was done to meet the educational needs of Asian

MKs. Many Asian parents sent their children to mission schools because of
the Christian environment and English teaching. I have met many Asian
parents who have sent their children to MK schools. They are glad their
children have learned very good English. However, they are concerned that
their children are losing their mother language. There are cases where
children do not know much of their mother language and their parents do
not understand much English. Consequently, the parent-child relationship
is hampered. Often since these children have not learned much about their
home culture, it is not uncommon for them to have difficulty fitting back
into life and studies in their home country.

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

343

Challenges for Asian Sending Countries

A growing number of Asian mission leaders are alarmed by the

attrition rate of their experienced missionaries. They have found out that
children's education is one of the main reasons these missionaries dropped
out. In light of the seriousness of this problem, some missions have become
more intentional about helping MKs maintain their mother language and
culture. A Korean MK school has now been established in Manila, the
Philippines. Some Asian missionaries from other countries are planning to
set up MK hostels either on the mission field or in their home country.
Moreover, Christian teachers have been sent to various fields to teach MKs
their mother language.

It is exciting to know that Asian sending countries have been doing

more to meet the educational needs of their MKs. However, because of the
small number of MKs from some countries, inter-mission MK care
committees and projects have been launched to care for their MKs. The
hope is that some successful new educational models will also be
developed to benefit our Asian MKs.

The Challenge for MK Schools

Although some Asian countries have been developing their own MK

educational models, MK schools which were established by Western
countries still remain a valid option for many Asian families. Traditionally,
these schools aim at preparing Western MKs to return to their home coun-
tries. Naturally, Western culture, mainly that of American or Britain,
dominates the school. Consequently, these MK schools which have
well-preserved traditional educational goals end up either acculturizing or
restricting the admission of the non-English-speaking Asian children. As
the trend of missions has changed and the number of non-Western MKs
increases, it is high time for MK schools to re-examine their educational
goals and establish a more multicultural learning environment.

If changes are necessary, what will be their impact on Western

students who are preparing to attend schools in their home countries?
When I was living in the United States, I met some MKs who had returned
to the States for college. Most of them had grown up on the mission field
and attended MK schools overseas. Since they had graduated from schools

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where American culture predominated, I thought they would fit back into
life in their home country very well. To my surprise that was not the case.
Although they did very well academically in college, many found it very
difficult to adjust socially. They found that they were not purely American
anymore. Certainly, there are many things in MK schools which are worth
preserving. However, the idea of sheltering students in schools with a
purely Western culture needs to be challenged.

Increasing Understanding of Asian Culture

Making changes may raise some significant questions about our level

of cultural understanding. How much do the faculty and administrators of
MK schools know about the Asian cultures these children come from? To
what extent do we accept, respect, and appreciate their culture and its
differences? Are we able to distinguish what is culturally appropriate and
what is not? If we find the cultural practices of some Asian families
biblically unacceptable or harmful to the development of the children, can
we communicate that message to the parents effectively?

As an Asian Chinese I want to address several dimensions of cultural

difference and discuss their implications for MK education. These cultural
differences between Western and Asian countries involve individualism
versus collectivism, "power distance," and uncertainty avoidance. I will use
illustrations from my experiences as an MK educator as well as from the
experiences of Asian missionary parents whose children have attended MK
schools.

Individualism versus Collectivism

"Individualism is a cultural pattern found in most northern and

western regions of Europe and in North America. Collectivism is common
in Asia, Africa, South America and the Pacific."

1

Basically, individualistic

cultures emphasize personal goals and interests whereas collectivist cul-
tures emphasize the goals and interests of in-groups such as the extended
family, the tribe, and the company. People from these two cultural back-
grounds hold different values and attitudes which affect their behaviors.

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

345

"In collectivist societies, education is a way of gaining prestige in

one's social environment and of joining a higher status group; whereas in
individualistic societies, education is a way of improving one's economic
worth and self-respect based on ability and competence."

2

For someone

from an individualistic culture, high academic achievement satisfies a
personal desire. However, for someone from a collectivist culture, in addi-
tion to self-promotion, educational success earns recognition for his or her
in-groups.

Recognizing that a good education will likely bring a promising future

for their children, parents in collectivist cultures like Asia will do their best
to put their children in a good school. Neither of my parents are literate, but
they were willing to sell property in order to send me and my siblings to
college overseas. Nevertheless, we clearly knew that our parents had high
expectations for us upon our graduation. Our academic success would
mean prosperity for the family. However, if we failed, besides having a
painful present and ruining a promising future, we would bring shame to
our parents.

Perhaps having their children prosper in the secular world is not a

high priority for Asian missionary parents. Nonetheless, they all hope that
their children will receive the best education possible. In MK schools, in
addition to the academic and recreational subjects the normal school
curriculum provides, these children have opportunities to learn different
languages and cultures. For example, Asian MKs learn at least three lan-
guages: English (which is the medium of communication at school), the
national language of the mission field, and their own mother tongue.
Usually, Asian parents also want their children to learn to play a musical
instrument.

Recently a Chinese MK attending a mission school was regularly

having to stay after school to complete his classwork because he had weak
concentration skills. However, in addition to his normal homework, he also
had extra Chinese lessons, and piano practice. It was not hard to under-
stand why he always complained he did not have much time to play. His
parents responded by encouraging him to persevere so that he would have
more useful skills later on in his life.

In one sense his parents were right. Children need to learn perse-

verance through hard work. However, different children have different

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abilities and talents. Teachers must help parents understand the abilities of
their children and guide parents in choosing classes and activities that most
benefit each child. Otherwise, the children may become overloaded with
schoolwork and activities or may fail and suffer guilt because they have let
their parents down.

In collectivist cultures, it is not uncommon for an individual to

sacrifice his pleasure for the sake of in-groups. Some in-groups are more
important than others, and for Asians the family is ahead of all others. It is
not uncommon to see Asian parents, particularly the Chinese, change jobs
or houses so that their child can live in the best neighborhood and attend
the best school. The mother of the ancient Chinese philosopher, Mencius,
moved three times in order to get away from undesirable neighborhoods.
She stopped moving when he could concentrate on his books.

Because of the limited educational options available for Asian MKs

on many mission fields, some parents have chosen to send their children to
boarding schools. This can be hard on any family, but especially on Asian
families with their strong parent-child bonds.

One Taiwanese missionary couple chose to send their two children to

an MK boarding school. However, the children's grandparents and their
family friends were concerned about the separation from their parents and
relatives. The parents chose this option because they believed their children
would receive the best education possible and return to their home culture
upon graduation. However, the situation was further complicated when
Western missionaries suggested to the parents that the school was designed
for Western MKs and might not be suitable for their children.

While parental concern is a universal reality, some cultures express it

more strongly. First, because of the emphasis on cultural family ties, this
Taiwanese couple found it extremely hard to separate from their children.
Second, the grandparents and family friends' objections placed immense
pressure on them. By understanding these aspects of Chinese culture, the
school staff was able to empathize with these parents and give them the
emotional support they needed.

"Within the in-group in collectivist cultures, one finds much social be-

havior that is associative (giving help or support)."

3

This Taiwanese family

was pitied by their friends at church when they realized that the children

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

347

would go to boarding school. The friends felt sorry for the children being
"abandoned" by their parents. They urged the couple to send their children
to a nearby Chinese school instead, and even offered to pay the expensive
school fees.

After much thought and prayer, the couple still felt it was right for

them to send their children to the mission boarding school. When they told
their friends about their decision, the friends became very angry. In
collectivist Asian cultures, great value is placed on saving face. The friends
felt they had lost face because their offer was rejected. As a result, the
couple experienced even more pressure! As this case illustrates, when a
person from a collectivist culture makes a decision, he is not only making a
personal decision, but must also consider the impact of the decision on his
in-groups.

Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance

Power distance determines the role expectations between teacher and

student, while uncertainty avoidance determines how students learn. These
cultural differences help to explain the differences in educational
philosophy and teaching methods between Asian and Western cultures.

"The extent to which the less powerful persons in a society accept

inequality in power and consider it as normal"

4

is defined as the power

distance. In comparing Asian cultures with its large power distance (LPD)
and Western cultures with its small power distance (SPD), it is obvious
that the former is teacher-centered while the latter is student-centered (see
page 336).

In LPD cultures, teachers are expected to be full of wisdom and have

all the answers. They initiate things and assume absolute authority.
Therefore, students are expected to show great respect toward their teach-
ers and conform to their teaching. However, in SPD cultures, teachers and
students have a more equal relationship. Since truth can be obtained by any
competent person, students are encouraged to show personal initiative.
They are even allowed to contradict or criticize teachers.

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Differences in Teacher-Student and Student-Student

Interaction Related to Power Distance

Small Power

Large Power

Distance Societies

Distance Societies

Stress on impersonal truth which

Stress on personal wisdom which

can, in principle, be obtained

is transferred in the relationship

from any competent person with a particular teacher

Teachers should respect the

Teachers merit the respect of

independence of students

their students

An emphasis on student-

An emphasis on teacher-

centered education (puts a

centered education (puts a

premium on initiative)

premium on order)

Teacher expects students to Students expect teacher to
initiate communication

initiate communication

Teacher expects students to Students expect teacher to
find their own paths

outline the path

Students may speak spon-

Students may speak only if

taneously in class

invited to by the teacher

Students are allowed to

Teachers are never contra-

contradict or criticize teachers

dicted or publicly criticized

Effectiveness of learning is Effectiveness of learning is
related to the amount of two-

related to the excellence of

way communication

the teacher

Outside class, teachers are

Respect for teachers is also

treated as equals

shown outside class

In teacher-student conflicts, In teacher-student conflicts,
parents are expected to side parents are expected to side
with the student

with the teacher

Younger teachers are more

Older teachers are more respected

liked than older teachers

than younger teachers

Source: Hofstded in International Journal of Intercultural Relations.

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

349

Differences in Teacher-Student and Student-Student

Interaction Related to Uncertainty Avoidance

Weak Uncertainty

Strong Uncertainty

Avoidance Societies

Avoidance Societies

Students feel comfortable

Students feel comfortable

in unstructured learning situa-

in structured learning situa-

tions: vague objectives, broad

tions: precise objectives,

assignments, no timetables

detailed assignments, strict

timetables

Teachers are allowed to say,

Teachers are expected to

"I don't know"

have all the answers

A good teacher uses plain

A good teacher uses

language

academic language

Teacher expects students to

Students are rewarded for

Initiate communication

accuracy in problem solving

Teachers are allowed to be-

Teachers are expected to

have emotionally (and so are

suppress emotions (and so are

students)

students)

Teachers interpret intellec-

Teachers interpret intellec-

tual disagreement as a

tual disagreement as personal

stimulating exercise

disloyalty

Teachers seek parents'

Teachers consider them-

ideas

selves experts who cannot

learn from parents, and

parents agree

Source: Hofstded, International Journal of Intercultural Relations.

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Besides power distance, uncertainty avoidance is another cultural

difference which affects learning. It is "the extent to which people within a
culture are made nervous by situations which they perceive as unstructured,
unclear, or unpredictable, situations which they therefore try to avoid by
maintaining strict codes of behavior and a belief in absolute truths."

5

Differences in teacher-student and student-student interaction are directly
related to uncertainty avoidance (see page 337).

In general, students in strong uncertainty avoidance (SUA) cultures

feel more comfortable in a structured environment where their learning and
activities are heavily guided. In contrast, students in weak uncertainty
avoidance (WUA) cultures enjoy unstructured and self-directed learning
environments. In SUA cultures, learning is content-based and students are
passive; whereas in WUA cultures, learning is activity-based and students
are actively involved in the learning process.

Most Asia countries belong to LPD and SUA cultures, while most

Western countries belong to SPD and WUA cultures. Both Asian and
Western educational philosophy and teaching methods have their pros and
cons. Asian societies emphasize the teaching of self-sacrifice, group
conformity, and respect for age and authority. These are values which have
been lost in Western societies where individual interests and self-
actualization are stressed. However, the teacher and content-centered
teaching approach of Asian societies can be mechanical and impersonal.
Instead in Western societies, learning is more interesting and challenging as
students actively acquire knowledge and learn to function independently of
their teachers.

The concepts of power distance and uncertainty avoidance help to

explain the differences in educational philosophy and teaching methods
between Asian and Western cultures. This information can be very useful
for MK educators as well as missionary parents. A ten-year-old Chinese
MK from Hong Kong was attending a mission school dominated by both
SPD and WUA cultures. One day, his mother asked the teacher anxiously
whether her son was doing well in school. She was concerned because her
son did not have to study or do much homework after school, especially in
comparison to what would have been expected of him in Hong Kong. One
year later the family returned to Hong Kong on furlough and their son
attended a regular elementary school. After a few months, the mother wrote

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

351

and told the teacher that her son was struggling in school. Obviously, many
factors can be cited as causing his adjustment problems. However, we can
be sure that the differences in the educational systems and in teaching style
between the two cultures were involved in his problems.

If Western educational philosophy and teaching methods continue to

dominate MK schools, it is important for teachers to inform Asian parents
about the cultural differences in their approach to education. This
knowledge helps parents in two ways. First, it helps them in their long-term
educational planning. If they plan to send their children to Western MK
schools, they need to ask themselves whether their children will continue
their education (for college and university) in the Western system as well.
Children must make adjustments in every cultural transition they face.
However, the older the child gets, the more difficulty he has in adjusting. If
parents plan to send their teenagers back to Asia to be educated, what kind
of resources will be available to help their teens assimilate into their own
culture? Second, understanding the differences in the educational systems
will enable parents to help their children adjust to school when they return
home on furlough.

Redefining the Goals of MK Schools

Acknowledging that MKs are third-culture kids will not do these

children any good, if MK educators try to mold them to be like children in
the home country who have not had any overseas exposure.

Instead it will be of great benefit for MKs if educators affirm the

uniqueness of these children and try to make use of the overseas
opportunity to enrich their lives. MK schools have one of the richest
learning environments. One large MK school I visited had a student body
composed of students with than seventeen nationalities. Although the
majority were from America, there were students from Europe, South
America, Australia, and Asia. Students from each country bring with them
the uniqueness of their culture which reflects the beauty of our Creator.
What a difference there is between making all students conform to one
culture and teaching them how special each culture is in God's sight and
helping them appreciate the beauty of each other's cultures. With the
diversity of students in our schools, it is easy to show favoritism or play up

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the greatness of any culture. Nevertheless, it is a marvelous opportunity to
impart to children that the truth of the Gospel is that despite their
differences, they are all equal and one in Christ.

Turning Vision into Action

Of course, if educators affirm the importance of minority groups

within their school, they must also take responsibility for meeting the
educational needs of these children. Besides learning the regular school
curriculum, these children also need to learn their mother language and
culture.

As I talked to teachers and dorm staff from different MK schools, I

was very excited to learn that many attempts have been made to help Asian
MKs maintain their mother language and culture within the school. At the
same time, the resources of these Asian children have been tapped and used
to enrich the lives of other children. I've included some of the activities
attempted and suggestions made by the teachers and boarding home staff
(see page 340).

Activities and Suggestions

At School:

1.

Provide weekly language lessons if a native language speaker or

teacher is available.

2.

Adapt the social studies curriculum and include content about

children's home countries and the host country.

3.

Assign individual and class projects about children's countries.

4.

Recruit suitable long- or short-term Asian staff as teachers.

5.

Build up a library of books in children's mother tongue.

6.

Invite parents to share about their country and culture in class.

7.

Organize international celebrations which aim at exposing

children to costumes, special foods, games, and artifacts of their countries.

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

353

At Boarding Home:

1.

Celebrate cultural festivals.

2.

Include national foods on the menu.

3.

Encourage children to pray in their own language at prayers or at

bedtime.

4.

Ask children to teach others songs in their own language.

5.

Play games that are cultural and might use their language; e.g.,

Chinese chess.

6.

Talk about their culture and language at mealtimes and bedtimes

and encourage the children to teach the boarding home staff words from
their own language.

7.

Encourage children to write letters to parents in their mother

tongue rather than English.

8.

Encourage the use of their own language when telephoning to

parents.

9.

Encourage contact, through letters, telephone calls, and visits

with the extended family such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

10. Encourage family and friends to send music tapes and videos in

the mother tongue.

11. Encourage parents to use their mother tongue language in the

home.

12. Encourage parents to set aside time and energy during holidays

to work on the mother tongue and cultural training, and not to communicate
in the host language or English simply because it is easier.

Source: Communication, Culture and Organizational Processes by

Stella Ting-Toomey.

Perspectives on Change

Making such big changes is not without its difficulties. Teachers have

commented that sometimes it was difficult to find suitable teachers and
teaching materials. Moreover, students are often not very motivated to
learn their mother language in school. Even worse, very often, parents were
not very good at reinforcing the language learning at home. Also, Western

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teachers found that their limited understanding of Asian culture made it
difficult for them to serve the Asian children in school. Because of the
limitation in teaching time, teachers found that if they wanted to expand the
width of the curriculum to include more cultural activities, they had to do
so at the expense of depth of other subjects. Teachers in larger MK schools
found that there was certain resistance in school when changes were
implemented.

Problems are inevitable whenever there is a change. Despite these

problems, the teaching and dorm staff who have been implementing the
changes all remain positive and feel that it is the direction where MK
schools should head. Today, many mission schools claim to be interna-
tional schools. However, the challenge facing the administrators and
teachers is to make these schools truly international.

As the first Asian teacher and dorm staff to serve full-time in an MK

school for two years, I have some comments about the change. During my
years of service, I witnessed many staff members who went to extra effort
to meet the special needs of the Asian children in school. All the Asian
parents and I deeply appreciated the cultural sensitivity of the staff. What
impressed me most was to see that both Westerners and Asians (children,
staff, and even parents) in the school had something to contribute to each
others' lives. We all learned and served as one in the love of Jesus Christ.
In general, all of us who had this vision and attempted to make changes,

affirmed that MK schools could be an excellent training ground for both
Western and Asian children.

Trends in Asian MK Ministry

The Asian mission movement has entered a new era. We should

rejoice as more and more Asian missionaries are joining in service. As a
result, the number of Asian MKs is also increasing. It is anticipated that
inter-mission and Western-Asian partnerships will become more important
in developing future ministries.

The responsibility of the Asian sending countries to care for the

educational needs of their MKs is undeniable. As the number of MKs in
some Asian countries is still low, mission organizations need to work
closely together to create suitable educational models for Asian MKs.

Understanding the Needs of Asian MKs

355

On the other hand, in response to the challenges facing MK schools,

Western and Asian partnerships become crucial. Although MK school
personnel have found difficulties in implementing changes in their schools,
we have also found that success cannot be achieved through the efforts of
the teaching staff only. In order to understand the unique needs of Asian
MKs and provide the best education for them, more communication and
cooperation are needed between colleagues from the West and in the
Orient.

Notes

1. Triandis, Harry C., Richard Brislin, C. Harry Hui, "Cross-Cultural
Training Across the Individualism-Collectivism Divide," Intercultural
Communication: A Reader.

Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth Publishing Co,

1991, p. 371.
2. Hofstded, Geert., "Cultural Differences in Teaching and Learning,"
International Journal of Intercultural Relations,

Vol. 10, 1986, p. 312.

3. Triandis, Harry C., et al., p. 375.
4. Hofstded, Intercultural Relations, p. 307.
S. Hofstded, p. 308.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission of Interact, February 1996.

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38.

Boarding: Getting Back to Basics

Tom and Wendy Ballentyne

What part does boarding have in the whole missionary endeavor?

What is the boarding home parents role in the missionary family? What are
the essential ingredients of a positive boarding experience? The answers to
these questions can be found in our underlying philosophy of ministry as
related to boarding. "Philosophy" is defined as (drum roll) "a system of
principles for the conduct of life." It is important to be clear on what our
philosophy of boarding is. This is what will determine why and how we do
what we do.

A Philosophy of Boarding

1. The first principle that is crucial is that boarding involves team

parenting.

Boarding home parents are not replacement parents, nor are

they substitute parents. Team parents join together in the ongoing nurture
of the child--not in competition for control, but in cooperation. Boarding
home parents rely on the advice, insight and support of the parents, and
vice versa. Those who see boarding home parents as substitutes or
replacements usually have the concept of a "glorified baby-sitter" role for
them. Maybe we need to throw out the term "boarding home parent" and
change it to "team parent" in order to keep the concept clear.

2. The second principle is that of body ministry. When my husband

and I are on furlough, we share our ministry of team parenting by saying
that we are involved in church planting in Mindanao, we help in a factory
in China, we are aiding in the translation of the Scripture in about eight
different languages, and also have a part in reaching the remote tribal areas
of Irian Jaya. After people are duly impressed, we share how, by teaming
up with the parenting of missionary kids, we hold ministerial hands with
everyone in the Body, from those who are prayer warriors, to those who are
hacking through the jungles to share with the unreached. Christ himself
stressed how we all have to work together as a Body, not as lone rangers.

3. The final principle is that the purpose of boarding is to help meet

the needs of the missionary family

. The team parents work together with

Boarding: Getting Back to Basics

357

many others to ensure that the missionary family remains healthy and
equipped to do the work they have been called to. They can rest in the
confidence that their children are being cared for in a loving environment,
and receiving the education they need. They can be assured that the team at
the school will do all in their power to be good stewards of what they have
been entrusted with.

The Role of Boarding in the Missionary Family

On the basis of these three principles:

1. The boarding home should not try to mimic the homes that the kids

come from. This is not to be a replacement home, but another home. The
team parents need to set up their home as they feel comfortable, with the
structure and standards that they can live with, without feeling the pressure
to "perform" to the dictates of every style of parenting that is represented
in the families in their home.

2. The boarding home is not a reform school. Unfortunately, there

have been situations where parents have placed a child in boarding in
hopes that the school will be able to control what they cannot. The
problems usually stem from relational difficulties at home, and because of
this, are best dealt with by being together in family counseling. These kids
are the ones who would demand the bulk of the team parent's time, not to
mention emotional energy. They are also the ones who have a tendency to
drag others down with them. With so many others who need nurturing, it is
not wise to have one there at the expense of the others. Boarding is not
reserved for the perfect child, but it does work best for those who have
open communication with their parents, and who are receptive to the
positive influence of others in their lives.

3. The boarding home cannot be used as a type of a hotel--merely to

provide food, shelter, and occasional entertainment. It should be a place to
nurture relationships which take time and effort to grow--and a
willingness to do so.

4. The team parent cannot view the boarding home as a "job" or

"duty." This must be their home and the children must be accepted into
their heart as part of their extended family. Attitudes remain in one's
storehouse of memories long after the words are said and forgotten. The

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kids will leave with the feeling that they were loved or tolerated, not by the
words spoken, but by the spirit in which they were spoken.

5. The boarding home needs to be where both the children and their

parents are made to feel wanted and welcome. In our home, we have put a
lot of effort into making the parents feel part of our family. The dividends
of that are that the parents feel much more at ease leaving their child in our
care, having gotten to know us and feeling the warmth that they know their
child will also feel. They become supportive partners.

Prerequisites of a Successful Boarding Experience

Before a parent decides to send their child to boarding school, there

are some foundational issues that need to be worked through.

1. If they sense that God is directing them to send their children to

boarding school, then they need to also recognize that, because God desires
to give us good things, he would not ask them to give their children second
best. If this is God's will for them at this time, then it must also be God's
best. If the parents feel that God is giving their children the lesser of two
evils, then the children will have difficulty coming to terms with how God's
love relates to them.

2. The parents also need to be open and willing to join ranks with the

team parents in cooperative parenting. They cannot relinquish their
responsibilities when they say good-by. The hugs they give and the
nourishment they provide will take on a more creative role! Commun-
ication, love, and support are not things which are deleted because of
distance, but they take on a new dimension.

3. The most important item to pack in a child's suitcase is the solidity

of family relationships. A child who feels secure in the knowledge that he is
loved unconditionally by Mom and Dad will feel secure to be open to other
relationships. There will always be pain in separation, but what is done
with that pain is crucial. It can strengthen the bonds, or bring bitterness.
The parents pattern how this is dealt with. They are often the ones who feel
the pain even more intensely--they are the ones who look at the empty
space at the table and the unslept-in bed. They need to express that pain,
not in terms of how many tears are shed, but in how interested they are in

Boarding: Getting Back to Basics

359

everything that the child is experiencing. It cannot be said often enough,
that communication is absolutely essential for all concerned.

The Payoffs of a Healthy Boarding Experience

Having been through many years of boarding as a child and now as a

team parent, there are recurring themes in this whole "benefits"
department.

1. One of the big payoffs is a strengthening of family bonds. We

have seen over and over again the depth of appreciation and loyalty to
family ties that is sweetened with the pain of separation. Feelings and
thoughts are expressed that are often put off until later, or left unsaid. One
parent thanked us as the team parents for being "the bad guys" for them
and allowing their family to just enjoy the good times together! It's true
that at school children work through the mundane, and the daily gripes and
struggles. They are only with their parents for a short time and they want to
make the most of it so they leave the fighting for school!

2. The children develop very deep relationships in the boarding

home. They become like family to each other because they eat, sleep, study,
and relax together. They learn both how to share themselves with others,
and also how to deal with conflict resolution. The team parents fulfill a
very significant role in modeling a Godly marriage and response to life.
Often, apart from the parents themselves, the team parents have had the
most impact on how the children define husband/wife relationships.

3. There are some situations where boarding has exposed some

problems

in a family. This is not an easy thing to deal with as the family

can feel very vulnerable and defensive. Discovering a tumor is traumatic,
and surgery involves considerable pain, but it is also essential for healing.
The family that is open to "undergo treatment" will be able to begin the
healing process.

4. A greater reliance on God has often resulted from being away

from home. Children's growth must be more personally motivated. In a
Christian school it is very easy to "look" right, and "talk" right, without
having any personal convictions. The persecution one receives comes from
those who aren't comfortable with any who would jump off the fence they
are all sitting on, and strive to shake them out of their comfort zone.

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5. One invaluable payoff that I personally received from my exper-

ience in boarding was a conviction about what makes a healthy family. The
three ties that entwine with each other to make an unbreakable bond are
love, communication, and support.

These are not restricted to geo-

graphical closeness. To throw the concept of "boarding" out because there
are some who have suffered is as logical as throwing out the concept of
"family" because there are also some who have suffered because of theirs.
There will always be those who abuse their responsibilities, whether in the
home or in the boarding system. It is better, says the Lord, that a millstone
be tied around their necks and they be thrown into the sea. However, over
and over, God has blessed the home that strives to embrace those within it
with the unconditional love which God has patterned. He can bless this
home wherever it is found.

Reprinted with permission from World Report, September/October 1997.

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39.

Preparing Children for Boarding School

Nick and Dora Pauls

Remember that going to boarding school is a major transition--for

the child and the family. Learn all you can about the skills needed to handle
other transitions in life successfully and seek to apply them when facing the
transition to boarding school.

Be sensitive to the individual needs of your children. Children are not

all ready at the same age to face separation from parents. If one of your
children seems particularly insecure and fearful of the separation,
investigate other options for that child's education to allow for additional
maturity. A year or two delay may prevent many years of difficulty later.

Get as much information about the boarding school as possible

before sending your children. Find out about its purpose, philosophy,
discipline, rules, and the expectations, privileges, and restrictions for you
as parents. If you don't understand something, seek clarification from
appropriate sources.

If at all possible, visit the boarding school and meet the boarding

home parents

with your children before you have to leave them there. This

will give you, as a family, an opportunity to talk specifically about what it
might be like for your children to go there, and they will be able to go to a
place that is at least somewhat familiar. You as parents will also be able to
visualize your children in their setting when they are away from you. All of
these things make it easier to maintain a sense of being "connected" even
when you are physically separated.

Talk about the boarding school experience well in advance. Be

realistic about what will be enjoyable and what will probably be difficult.
Express your feelings

honestly, and encourage your children to do so as

well, without trying to talk them out of feeling the way they do or telling
them they shouldn't feel a certain way.

When your children go to boarding school, allow them to take along

some reminders of home that are meaningful to them--family pictures,
favorite toys or books, pictures, or a special pillow or blanket.

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Provide your children with some tangible reminder of your love to

take along to the boarding school. Affirm your love to them and be sure
they understand--and feel--that you are not sending them away because
they are a bother to you or keep you from doing things that are more
important to you than they are.

Openly communicate that you will miss your children and that,

because of your deep love for them, you too feel emotional pain in being
separated from them. In years past, some parents have tried to hide their
feelings from their children, thinking that to show emotions and tears when
saying good-bye would make it harder for their children--only to find out
later that the children interpreted that to mean their parents weren't sad to
see them leave and so probably didn't love them very much.

Discuss and make provision for ways to keep in touch while your

children are away at school. Keep them informed about what you are doing.
Share prayer requests and answers with them. Research indicates MKs who
feel in some way involved in their parents' ministry, either directly or
through information and prayer, fare better as adults than those who don't
feel involved in any way.

Encourage regular and honest communication from your children.

Show them you are interested in the events, relationships, struggles, joys,
accomplishments, and failures of their lives. Respond to their commun-
ication in a positive way without criticism.

When you become aware that your child is struggling or having

discipline problems, seek to get as much information as possible before
taking any drastic action. Listen carefully to your child's side of the story
along with the children's home parent's or teacher's side. If possible, go to
the boarding home so you can deal with the issue in person with the
purpose of seeking to do what is best for your child and to help him or her
become a better person as a result of any action taken. Find ways of affirm-
ing your love to your child even when his or her behavior is unacceptable.

If at all possible, get to know the "significant others" who will be

part of your children's lives while they are at boarding school.

Get to know the boarding home parents and let them get to know

you. A mutual relationship of trust and appreciation for each other will
help you work together to help your children grow and mature into healthy,

Preparing Children for Boarding School

363

wholesome adults and to point them to a personal relationship with the
Lord. Let them know of some of the special likes and dislikes of your
children. If your children like some special ethnic food, ask to teach the
children's home parents how to prepare it (even provide the ingredients if
they are unusual) so they can make it for your children for some special
occasion like a birthday.

Try to meet the teachers who will be teaching your children. Tell

them of any special needs or interests your children have. Let them know of
any experiences your children have had that may affect their ability to
concentrate on school work, so the teacher can be sensitive to them.

Get acquainted with classmates and friends of your children. This

will make it easier for you to understand your children's communication
about their peers.

Attend the church or fellowship your children will attend. Meet and

introduce your children to their Sunday school teacher or youth sponsor, so
they will feel there is a familiar face in the crowd. It will help make church
attendance less frightening.

If a family of the same ethnic origin is in the area where your

children will be attending boarding school, perhaps they would be willing
to be someone with whom your children can speak their own language, eat
familiar foods, etc.

Involve your children in planning how to spend their school vacation

time. Spend time together doing some special family things. During
extended time periods at home, it is also a good idea to let your children see
you involved in the daily routine of your ministry and have them participate
as appropriate, so they can envision and understand what you are doing
when they are away from you.

While your children are at home, develop spontaneous, natural ways

to talk about things you want to affirm and build in your children, such
as:

· extended family relationships (grandparents, aunts, uncles,

cousins), understanding and appreciation for home country culture, as well
as discernment about the positive and negative aspects of that culture

· Christian values and beliefs

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· personal relationship with the Lord

· the ministry to which God has called your family and how each

individual family member contributes to it

· appreciation/respect for the host culture (or any person or group

whose lifestyle is different from your own)

· discernment in evaluating those aspects of the host culture (or any

other individual or group whose lifestyle is different from your own) that
are in line with your family and Christian values and those that are not

Build your children's confidence in taking responsibility and

making decisions

that are in agreement with internal values and convic-

tions, so they will not be as easily influenced by external pressures to
participate in questionable behavior when they are away from home.

Most importantly, build and nurture strong and loving relationships

within the family long before you face the transition to boarding school.
The confidence that Mom and Dad love each other and their children
regardless of circumstances, performance, achievement, and physical
separation will help provide stability and security in the midst of transition
and change, including the transition to boarding school.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Parents Teaching
Overseas,

May 1995

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40.

Developing Christian Curriculum:
A Complex Task

Diane Lilleberg

"Why doesn't someone just take some time, dig in, solve the problem,

and get the Christian curriculum job done?

This question was posed near the end of a presentation I made

recently. The participant who raised it had become aware of cultural and
denominational bias in some of the Christian curriculum available--issues
which are magnified in an overseas situation.

The complexity of the Christian curriculum task is difficult to

describe adequately. How can we write curriculum that can be "light" and
"salt" to young minds and those teaching them, whether they agree with
our world view or not? People, expertise, finances, and widely differing
views of what "Christian education" means are only the beginning of what
needs to be considered. One can easily bias or trivialize such an auspicious
project as directing children to think biblically and to use the Word of God
as a tool to test oneself, rather than an additional subject on which to be
tested.

Such a tool is something to be reached for and used as students and

teachers alike struggle with questions and form a growing world view that
can be communicated with compassion. Such a world view encourages the
ownership of one's faith in an amazing God who loves individually, in an
awe-inspiring world we are to care for as it supports our lives, and with
personal confidence that God has a purpose for each of us. Through that
purpose, we have the opportunity of returning love to God through worship
and loving service.

Whenever God has blessed us with sufficient vision, expertise,

wisdom, finances, and personnel, CHED Family Services has participated
in curriculum tasks. Whether that task involved reviewing available mater-
ials, both Christian and secular, or developing our own, we have quickly
realized we are but "beginning learners" in this area.

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Our recent development efforts have concentrated on two areas. The

first is early grade "packaging" to help parents become comfortable with
the teaching role they often assume in isolated locations. A second, more
complex effort has been writing themes, or units, for social studies
(history, geography, and so on).

Multicultural Social Studies

This is the subject area most difficult to cover suitably for the

students we serve. We are unaware of anything currently published that
allows children from different countries (who live in and are familiar with
several other cultures not tied to their birth heritage) to study social studies
together. We also wanted theme activities to challenge children and to
enrich and encourage our missionary families in their ministry to one an-
other and to the world.

The following is a glimpse of what a developmental task involves.

Before actually beginning, countless hours of foundational work must

take place:

· background research to study the subject itself

· exploration of what the Bible really says about it

· learning what national education council experts of the discipline

consider important for children to learn

· identifying concepts (rather than specific factual content) that

illustrate the "meat" of the subject. This allows for alternate
content students might need in preparation for different home-
country educational systems.

Economics: An Example

A theme focusing on the topic of economics proved more difficult

than most even though the key economic concept of scarcity seemed to be
universally important to economists. Christian curriculum presented it
similarly to secular curriculum, with an added warning that care be taken
because Scripture does not present scarcity as necessarily a negative.

The economic concept of scarcity has two interrelated parts:

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· people have unlimited wants

· resources available to provide those wants are limited

So--like most parents tell children, most groups tell members, and

most societies tell citizens--we can't have everything we want. We have to
make choices.

That sounds simple enough.

But it isn't simple at all. What a challenge to try to word economic

concepts in a way that reflects biblical truth and avoids cultural bias!
People may have unlimited wants, but what they want varies with personal
and cultural values, as well as with what they expect or even feel entitled to
from their historic standard of living.

As we looked for a way to help students understand the complexity of

choices people make in searching for what they desire and in regarding and
using the resources available to them, we had the privilege of access to
God's Word as a guiding resource. We realized anew the power and
practicality of its message--this treasure so available to us.

Trading Treasures

. . . as that potential title for this theme came to

mind one evening, I began reflecting on the "treasures" my family had to
offer and on the ones being returned to us. The next morning my mind
awoke singing, "Count your treasures, name them one by one . . ." Trading
a treasure of time to consider and attach value to the resources available to
me and my family proved more than worthwhile. It left me satisfied.

"An unlimited desire for satisfaction" is how we refined our definition

of unlimited wants. One can be satisfied while basic needs are difficult to
meet. On the other hand, one can have every material want met and still be
unsatisfied. And resources (those treasures available to help satisfy our
needs and wants) are limited. We need to invest our treasure wisely. Often
it is through struggling with what we first determine to be too little that we
discover the availability of God's unlimited resources. Instead of hoping to
be more capable, we may find ourselves capable of hoping--a treasure that
deeply satisfies.

Finished or Just Beginning?

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Are we finished with our Christian curriculum task? No, we are only

ready to begin. Now we know what we need to look for in our own lives--
growth in our ability to define satisfaction, and learning to recognize and
appreciate the gift of resources. We can only begin to understand the
responsibility and complexity tied to knowing there are no costless choices
in using shared treasure. What model do our students observe in decisions
being made regarding the wise use of resources? Do these decisions
consider the common good and what might be differently satisfying to the
different people affected by our decisions, both now and in the future?

Perhaps now we are at last ready for a syllabus and for ideas that will

help students demonstrate something new they have learned and will help
them grow up knowing each one can make a real difference to the world.

Treasure in Ministry

My prayer as we continue to develop this and other themes is that God

will use them to expand knowledge, promote understanding and
appreciation, impact lifelong choices, strengthen relationships, and stimu-
late faith while at the same time fostering the joy of learning for the
students, parents, and educators who use them. The confidence that this
prayer is being answered in some small way is a truly satisfying reward for
this complex curriculum development task.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from CHED News,

March 1994.

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41.

Choosing a Curriculum

Diane Lilleberg

"Christian" or "Secular" Curriculum?

There are two ways Christian families typically look at the curriculum

issue of choosing between a presentation from a Christian perspective or
from a secular perspective.

One perspective includes a desire to protect children from the

influence of secular world views, especially those including humanism or
evolution. This may reflect a belief that children accept as truth what is
written or stated. It may also reflect a concern that evaluating the truth of a
secular presentation will imply that the truth of God's Word is also open
for evaluation. The potential of exposure to secular world views is seen as
a danger that can seriously compromise the child's adherence to Christian
beliefs and values held by the parents.

The other perspective includes the desire to make students aware that

all presentations are biased with a given world view and need to be eval-
uated in light of personal faith and what you regard as truth. It is argued
that a protective approach encourages children to accept as truth all
material presented. Students may then be left without necessary skills to
evaluate alternative views and to communicate sympathetically outside a
Christian culture. Presentation of secular curriculum in a setting that
model a Christian response is viewed as a unique opportunity to give
students skill in recognizing, evaluating, and sympathetically responding to
other world views.

Both perspectives share the belief that God's Word is the final

authority in determining truth. One approach is to provide curriculum
containing material that has examined human teachings and has explicitly
rejected (by omission or contradiction) any statements contrary to biblical
principles. The other approach is to provide students with practical exper-
ience in examining human teachings and rejecting presentations of truth
that contradict their faith and adherence to the truth of God's Word.

In summary, the following key questions should be considered in

examining the issue of curriculum presentation:

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If a secular world view

is presented as truth, do students accept that

world view without evaluating it?

Does presentation

of a secular world view compromise a belief in

biblical truth?

Does encouraging evaluation

of world views compromise adherence

to the Bible as a standard of truth that should not be evaluated?

Does the fact that

a world view is published as "Christian"

encourage acceptance of that view without evaluating the cultural and
interpretive elements in it?

Does protective presentation

of a Christian world view leave

students vulnerable when later presented with other world views or when
asked to defend that view?

Does the consistent presentation

of one particular Christian world

view as truth leave students insensitive to alternative Christian world views
or compromise their ability to communicate God's truth in other cultures?

Seeking a Balance

Either perspective can lend balance to the other. The key is for

students to be given the exposure and encouragement necessary to develop
skills in evaluating and responding to the world around them. The purpose
in developing these skills is both to encourage sympathetic responses in a
multicultural world and to allow student ownership of a personal world
view as it relates to personal faith and biblical truth.

Curriculum Selection

How can I decide what curriculum program is best?

Here are some questions you should ask yourself as you consider

available curriculum programs. The questions are formulated for parents
who are looking for curriculum for home teaching, but they are also
applicable in classroom settings.

Do I want a "Christian" curriculum or a secular curriculum?

· Is the curriculum educationally sound?

· Is it an appropriate fit in other ways? (see other questions below)

Choosing a Curriculum

371

· Will this curriculum encourage sympathy to other cultures and

other world views, including other Christian world views?

· Does this curriculum limit my opportunity to model Christian

values?

· Am I comfortable modeling an evaluation of a Christian world

view?

Correspondence Questions

· Can I purchase part of a package?

· Am I allowed to reuse it for younger children?

· What type and how many textbooks are used and what are the

publishing dates?

· How reliable is the ordering and/or advisement service?

· What experiences have others had with the program?

· What scheduling helps are provided with the curriculum?

· Will such helps be an advantage for me?

· Will such helps be an advantage for my child? In what way?

· Will I look at scheduling helps as "suggested," or will such helps

put additional pressure on me (and, as a result, on my child)?

· Are options available for accelerating the schedule?

What kind of helps are included for the teacher?

· Are they educationally sound?

· Will they encourage my educational values for my children?

· How many options are provided?

· Is the amount of structure appropriate to my background and

teaching style?

· Do the helps provide suggestions for dealing with children who

need time and/or children who need challenge?

What kind of educational outcomes are expected?

· Written assignments or compositions?

· Fill-in-the-blanks or other short-answer?

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· Facts or concepts?

· Processes or problem-solving?

Are the student assignments appropriate?

· Are tasks required of students developmentally appropriate?

· Is there task variety in the student assignments?

· Is there a variety in levels of thought required in accomplishing the

assigned tasks?

· What level of creativity in product or creativity in thought is

encouraged and/or allowed?

Additional Questions

· What is the potential for student independence?

· What fits my child's personality and learning style?

· What fits my personality and style?

· What will motivate my child?

· What will motivate me?

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Parents Teaching

Overseas

, NovemberDecember 1991.

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42.

A Framework for
Culturally Sensitive Curriculum

Richard J. Edlin

The following is a brief summary of a process of designing a

curriculum which is culturally sensitive. For a detailed discussion of
curriculum design, see Chapter 6 of Christian Philosophy of Education by
Richard Edlin (Northport Alabama: Vision Press, 1994).

1. Christian Approach to Education: No Neutrality

We start by recognizing the common bond that teachers have in

Christ; a recognition of the religious nature of the task that any curriculum
developers are involved in; and with an acceptance of our calling to prepare
material for our schools that leads to the worship and service of God the
Creator, and not worship of the creature or creation. For example, Paul's
stirring sermon in Athens, recorded in Acts 17, shows us that all people are
religious--that we are all worshipers because God has made us that way.
Paul reminds us that most people have been deceived in this worship,
however, and they worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator
(Romans 1:25).

We cannot choose whether to worship or not, but what we can choose

is the object of our worship. In our educational task, we must actively
choose to worship and serve the Lord, for there is no neutrality.

This approach to curriculum development converts what could be a

cultural hurdle in an international school into an exciting advantage. Our
school programs should not be determined by the culture of the
administrator or the most vocal group of teachers. The basic reality and
authority in the missionary school is that we are united in Christ and
accordingly recognize a corporate submission to Christ's Word as the
guide for all of life, including education. So we build our curriculum not on
what is done in America or England or New Zealand, but upon biblical
principles as they apply to the educational task universally. We then can
incorporate the diversity of cultural and educational perspectives into the
structure of our curriculum.

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2. Definitions

Even the way we frame our definitions reflects our beliefs and impacts

our curriculum. For example, the definition of social studies for the
Christian will be different from that for the non-Christian. The
non-Christian may define social studies as "the body of knowledge that
relates to man as a member of society...or any systemized human institu-
tion" (Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary). A Christian curriculum
statement will emphasize the concept of a God-centeredness and human
stewardship, so that the definition of social studies might be "the study of
people in community and relationships in particular space and time
settings, functioning as stewards of the cultural mandate given by God."

3. Christian Distinctives

At this point we need to identify the key concepts that Christians

believe about the curriculum area under discussion, as well as affirming our
commitment to a culturally sensitive understanding and application of these
beliefs.

4. The Students

This is the heart of cultural sensitivity in our MK schools. The first

three steps of this model focus on the fundamental Christian basis of our
curriculum. Now the cultural sensitivity question comes to the fore. We
cannot allow factors such as textbooks or the teacher's background to
replace this step in the curriculum development process. We need a re-
source base that helps our teachers know where the children in their classes
come from, where they are now, and where they will be going. These
questions need to be considered individually in the four dimensions of
culture, spiritual life, academics, and social patterns. We need to get to
know our children very well in our MK school classrooms!

5. Aims and Objectives: Curriculum Content and Skills

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and
more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be
able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless
until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness

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that comes through Jesus Christ...to the glory and praise of
God" (Philippians 1:9-11)

Thus Paul summarized our aims and objectives for our students. As

we develop these aims and objectives in a culturally sensitive way, it will
become obvious that it is very difficult--and indeed dangerous--to be too
prescriptive in terms of content. This is because in many subjects a content
pattern is appropriate for children from one culture but inappropriate for
the others.

Care is also needed in setting aims and objectives in terms of behavior

and skills. The teacher in the culturally sensitive classroom will seek to
achieve these skills and behavioral goals in a wide range of content situa-
tions that reflect the statements in the curriculum under subject 14.

6. Resources

This is a most important area of concern. The old approach of

adopting a package curriculum whereby the authors shape the nature of the
classroom work is obviously completely unsuitable. A curriculum package
approach reduces teachers to being mere technicians who implement
others' instructions, and prescriptive text and workbook packages are
responsive only to the home country culture for which they were written.

Teachers in a culturally sensitive classroom will use traditional

textbooks as one resource among many. The teacher will use a wide variety
of resources from different backgrounds in order to meet the needs and
experiences of the students. The teacher will have the freedom and joy
(and, initially, the trepidation) of designing and implementing programs,
and will really be able to teach, shaping the nature of the educational task
in the classroom for the benefit of the students.

7. Curriculum Content

Only at this point can we develop a content base for our curriculum,

with the awareness that this base may change from year to year as the
cultural composition of our student body changes. Needs will change as
missionaries from one culture leave and others from another culture arrive.
With the application of some creative energy, teachers are able to meet the

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externally imposed content requirements that many national educational
systems demand for entrance into their higher education programs.

8. The Classroom

If the elements of the above model are followed, then teachers can be

confident that their classrooms will be exciting and fulfilling places for the
whole school and will meet the needs of their students. Students will be
challenged with the Lordship of Christ as they learn about the world and
their places and tasks in it, both in the host culture where they are living
and in the various places they will go when they leave. What more could a
teacher ask for?

Adapted, with minor editing, by permission of World Report,

January/February 1992.

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43.

Pre-Field Orientation

Philip M. Renicks

Staffing issues are some of the most pressing concerns for the MK

school administrator. Those concerns include recruiting, selection, and
induction--all of which are complicated by unexpected resignations of
quality staff.

Why do those who are making a positive contribution in the

classroom sometimes abruptly leave, short-circuiting their missionary
teaching careers? A number of researchers have identified the reasons as a
mismatch of expectations which prevents a good adjustment to the host
country culture, and difficulty feeling accepted in the mission subculture.
Other research has indicated that pre-departure orientation greatly
enhances the successful adaptation of a person who is new to cross-cultural
life and work.

New MK caregivers often struggle to survive and communicate, and

may express negative thoughts about the new culture while longing for
home. These responses to the cross-cultural setting produce dissonance and
insecurity for the MK. MKs need adults who understand both worlds,
helping them to respond to the double challenge of growing up in and
living between two worlds.

The ability of new boarding home parents, teachers, and admin-

istrators to understand the host culture and MKs (who exhibit many of the
host culture's characteristics) increases their ability to carry out the
intended task: the education, development and nurture of MKs. When MK
caregivers have developed healthy perspectives, they have far more
satisfaction living cross-culturally, and are able to concentrate on their
work assignments.

This permits the MK caregiver to appropriately use his or her God-

given abilities, gifts and experiences. The way MK caregivers relate to
MKs is a key factor in the immediate and long-term success or failure of
missionary families. It also makes a significant impact on the lifelong
vocational and spiritual choices of individual MKs.

Each year, many new teachers and caregivers take their places in MK

schools. Most of these new workers assume that MKs are identical to their

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counterparts in their parents' homeland. They are not aware of the impact
of the cross-cultural experience on the MK. The majority of these new MK
caregivers have limited or no cross-cultural experience and minimal contact
with missions in general. These issues raise some critical questions about
the ongoing effectiveness of the MK schools.

With increasing numbers of two-thirds world missionaries, MK

schools need to respond to the developmental and educational needs of a
multicultural student body. To meet these needs, much more than the
familiar traditional Western approach is needed. This provides yet more
complexity for the orientation of administrators and teachers who will
serve in the MK school.

MK caregivers are often viewed as support staff for core missionaries

such as evangelists and church planters. By necessity, the standard
orientation provided by the mission emphasizes organizational issues
related to evangelism and church/mission relationships, helping the core
missionary, but leaving MK caregivers with little direction or under-
standing of their vital role and specialized ministry.

It is within the context of these issues that a pre-departure training

program was created by a consortium of trainers from ACSI (the Assoc-
iation of Christian Schools Interntional), Interaction, Inc., and Missionary
Training International.

This specialized two-week program integrates the professional issues

of MK care with the cultural and interpersonal realities of cross-cultural
service. This is more complex than it may appear on the surface. The new
MK caregiver is required to enter at least three foreign cultures: the host
country culture, the mission subculture, and the school subculture. This
multiple entry requires a mastery of entry skills.

The pre-field orientation program assumes that teacher participants

have training and experience as professionals in the subject area of their
teaching assignment. Therefore, the orientation program focuses on the
interplay of cultural, interpersonal, and professional issues for both
teachers and boarding parents entering the multicultural MK school
context.

The consortium's program is designed to introduce MK caregivers to

basic skills and attitudes which will help them to be effective in their future

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cross-cultural environment. It is not intended to provide culture-specific
information, that can only be acquired through observation and experience
in a field setting. Pre-field orientation is a bridge to the on-site orientation
and development of MK caregivers as members of the MK school
community, and as active participants in the cross-cultural community.

Participants in MK-PFO are given an opportunity to:

· Assess, clarify, and refine interpersonal skills and attitudes that

will enhance their future ministry with the children of missionaries.

· Examine their experience and educational background in relation

to the unique context of the multicultural MK school, and gain insight for
personal adaptation.

· Identify significant characteristics of MKs, MK schools, mission-

aries and their families, the missionary community, and the multinational,
international community.

· Examine and discuss job-specific issues for teachers and boarding

home parents in multicultural MK schools.

· Understand the basics of cultural differences and effective cultural

entry, and develop a personal entry posture which will enhance their entry
into a cross-cultural context and increase their competence as school and
support staff.

· Value the importance of integrating their biblical knowledge and

personal faith into daily life and ministry within the multicultural MK
school setting.

These pre-field orientation programs (PFO) have been held annually

since 1986, and new personnel from dozens of missions have participated.
Some missions make the PFO experience a requirement for new MK
caregivers and view it as a vital and complementary program to their own
pre-field programs.

PFO experiences of staff at Morrison Academy in Taiwan were

reported in the Fall 1996 issue of their newsletter, Spectrum. Some of the
teachers attended the pre-field orientation with their children, who were
enrolled in age-appropriate classes, went on field trips, viewed videos, and
learned about their destination countries. Adults engaged in lectures,
personality testing, parenting classes, journaling, panels, advisor inter-

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views, job-alike sessions, small-group Bible studies, and culture simulation
games.

One teacher commented, "It helps people feel... they are worthy of

being trained, professionally and personally. It speaks clearly of a commit-
ment of the school to excellence."

Gregory Meeks, Superintendent of Morrison Academy, observed,

"An on-field orientation without the benefit of a pre-field

orientation can be compared to changing a flat tire while you are
driving down the road. It makes more sense to change the flat
before you begin your journey. Once you are on the road there
are road signs and other traffic to watch.

"Pre-field orientation provides participants with an aware-

ness of the make-up and needs of Mks and TCKs, and helps
educate staff in the important role that they play in the overall
missionary endeavor. It gives new staff basic cross-cultural
skills and an understanding of culture shock.

"PFO provides an opportunity, while the participants are

still in a familiar setting, to explore new learnings which will
help make them successful in their new role. It takes a little bit
of time to check your tires before taking off on a long journey,
but it is much easier to change a flat tire while you are sitting
still than while you are driving down the road!"

Adapted, with minor editing, by permission from World Report, Janu-
ary/February 1992, and Spectrum, Fall 1996.

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44.

On-Site Orientation Programs

Bonnie McGill

An adequate orientation program can make a significant difference in

the acculturation of new personnel overseas. There is now a growing body
of evidence that shows it also increases the longevity of MK school person-
nel. Recent research by David Wilcox on factors affecting staff longevity
identified factors which schools can impact (the degree of commitment, job
satisfaction, and cultural adjustment, as well as the role of the spouse and
his or her level of satisfaction) and those which they cannot impact (age,
marital status, etc.). For example, a clearly articulated vision statement
may promote a greater sense of commitment. Sensitivity by an
administrator may improve a staff member's level of job satisfaction. The
level of pre-field training as well as the orientation program provided on
the field impact the level of acculturation.

What's Important in Orientation?

Many cross-cultural orientation programs provided by MK schools

focus only on the "nuts and bolts" of the school's operation, day-to-day
living, and specific cultural information. While research shows that dealing
with these issues is definitely helpful and needed, it also clearly shows that
the highest priority should be given to dealing with attitudes. Knowing the
logistics of living in the new country and learning about the norms of that
new culture are important, but knowledge without proper attitudes will not
ensure successful cross-cultural adjustment. On the other hand, a
newcomer with proper attitudes but inadequate information will usually
become successful. Therefore, any orientation program which fails to
address attitudes is neglecting the single most critical element for the
success of new personnel.

Attitudes Matter

Here are some attitudes we should address during orientation: 1) Be-

coming and remaining a learner, rather than having an air of subtle
superiority. "I have so much to learn from the people of this country,"

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instead of "I have so much to teach these people;" 2) Developing a sense of
adventure about living in a foreign culture rather than focusing on the
negatives. "What a challenge to learn to live without...," instead of "This
country doesn't even have...!"; 3) Basing confidence on prior experience
rather than on pride. "I've been an outsider in new situations before and
God helped me to make it. I'm sure he will help me adapt here also,"
instead of "This won't be hard; I'm adaptable."

What Promotes Longevity?

Two factors, which are often overlooked, promote longevity and

should be given special attention: the person's expectations, and the
affective filters through which each person has learned to view life. These
filters may be largely unknown and are best understood through a proper
perspective of one's own past and personality.

The importance of language acquisition to acculturation, job satis-

faction, and longevity has been well documented for traditional mission-
aries. They need to be fluent to teach in seminaries and to preach as they
plant churches. However, research on the relationship between language
and increased longevity for foreigners who work with expatriates is
nonexistent. It is obvious that there are some major differences between the
missionary who uses a second language in a daily ministry and a teacher
who uses English to teach missionaries' children. However, it does seem
clear that a certain degree of proficiency in the language is also necessary
for the new faculty member as well. Without some language, culture shock
is greatly prolonged and acculturation is incomplete. In addition, lack of
language skills makes it more natural for someone to build a life
completely around the work of the school, and longevity is often thrown
out the window.

During orientation, language learning needs to be thoroughly dis-

cussed, and the importance of gaining proficiency emphasized. Based on
our past experience, the school's administration needs to make a decision
about this. Once the minimum level of language proficiency has been
determined, that expectation should be clearly communicated to new staff
and needs to be required or provided.

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Second, some type of organized follow up is imperative for organ-

izations that want to ensure successful cross-cultural transition for their
people. This can be done in two ways. First, create scheduled times for pur-
poseful listening. Small irritants often grow into insurmountable problems
because no one took the time to truly listen. Second, help the newcomer to
become accountable to someone. This should include checking on success
in cultural contacts as well as encouragement.

Scheduling Orientation Activities

Orientation should begin as soon as newcomers arrive in the country.

However, often by the time new faculty members arrive, it is harder to
interest them in important aspects of an orientation program. This is not
because they disagree with the importance of the attitudinal issues, but
because they're emotionally overloaded and their felt needs are more
pressing. "How can I be safe here? How can I provide for my family? How
will I meet our personal needs?" These are the questions that are
uppermost in their minds.

Ideally, dealing with attitudes, along with growth in understanding

one's personality and how one is likely to react to the stress of transition
and cultural adaptation, is best done in the country of origin before moving
overseas. When this cannot be done on a pre-field basis, newcomers should
be given time and help to get settled and find their way around before
asking them to take several days to focus on issues which are crucial to
their long-term adjustment.

It is essential to show the newcomer around and provide for his basic

needs during the first few days. On the other hand, at this stage it is easy to
provide more information than anyone can assimilate. It is also possible to
do too much for newcomers for too long. If new staff members come to see
the school as the source of all help, an attitude of dependence can be
fostered. This prevents or slows down the successful acculturation of new
staff members and their families. They may begin to feel that the school
"owes" them whatever they need. One goal of this phase of the orientation
process is to help newcomers to know where to go for help rather than to
provide all the help. After a few days of help in getting settled, new faculty

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members and their families can convene for meetings covering the rest of
the orientation material.

Who Is Overlooked in the Orientation Process?

According to Wilcox's research, singles and work-at-home spouses

have an extra need for good orientation and follow-up. This is also true for
teachers who do not come out through a mission board. Usually they have
not gone through psychological testing and have not received any pre-field
orientation programs which most missions require. Singles, people who
have not come through a mission organization, and work-at-home spouses
also often lack the accountability and encouragement structures that are
helpful to good adjustment. A well-designed orientation program can begin
to develop these support structures.

After the school year has started, the work-at-home spouse is often

cut off from most forms of social contact. Due to language and trans-
portation difficulties, they are often left with an overwhelming sense of
isolation. In this vacuum, it is hard to keep a positive attitude toward the
host country, the school, one's fellow expatriates, or life in general. If a
spouse is not given some extra attention, it is unlikely that longevity at the
school will be a part of this new family's future. Singles often have this
same sense of isolation during their free time, as do teachers without close
mission ties. Long after the formal orientation is finished, these people
continue to have needs. Addressing these needs makes a great deal of dif-
ference in people's attitudes and thereby increases staff retention.

A good orientation program takes time--at least several days--and

should not be hurried. It should include helping newcomers 1) find their
way around, 2) acquire proper attitudes, 3) learn about the new culture and
organizational expectations, and 4) provide for formalized follow-up. Staff
members who have had an adequate orientation program will usually adapt
sooner and better than they would have without it. This gives them a better
start toward successful cross-cultural living which in turn will increase
staff retention rate for the school.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, December
1995.

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45.

Staff Relationships That Work

Roger H. Luce

In the high intensity stress of ministry overseas, good interpersonal

relationships can be the key to maintaining equilibrium for the frazzled
faculty at an MK school. Those who take time to build rich friendships
that encourage one another in ministry, support one another in adversity,
and edify one another in love, have invested in an antidote to burnout and
can effectively model Christlikeness to students and the national commun-
ity. In order to improve relationships among staff and prepare individuals
to practice preventive maintenance in interpersonal relationships, it is
important to discover patterns and develop techniques that will promote
community building within the staff. These Christ-honoring relationships
can then serve as an example for students and the wider community.

Frazzled Faculty or Fulfilling Fellowship?

Tom and Debbi had been on the field almost a full term. They had

weathered language school, first encounters with cockroaches and power
outages. They had arrived enthusiastic and energetic. Tom taught and loved
it, Debbi was enjoying her ministry with Tom and had several
opportunities to work in the community teaching ESL classes and
volunteering in the local clinic. Tom was helping to coach in basketball and
soccer, was advisor to the yearbook, and together they sponsored a class of
tenth graders. They finished their term and did not return.

Kathy was a single person who had grown up on the mission field, and

when her parents were forced to leave their country of service, she wanted
to serve MKs in a Latin American country. After college, she taught
Spanish and English in an MK boarding school, and developed a strong
rapport with students, being frequently sought out for counsel. She was
involved in student government, social activities with the kids, and the
local church. After a third term, she left the field disillusioned.

Bill and Sharon had raised their kids on the field as they had served in

a variety of capacities at the MK school. Starting as a teacher, he had filled
in as Assistant Principal and Principal for two or three years. He was

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respected on the field and had served on the Field Council and as book-
keeper for the school and the field. Sharon was an effective soul winner,
and led Bible studies among the staff local and women. Their kids were
leaders in the school, both academically and spiritually. They left when
their middle child graduated, and only years later shared the real reason for
their move.

These composites are true to life, and too typical, because each one

left the field because of struggles in relationships. Tom and Debbi felt
isolated; they couldn't find their "niche." They had no kids and didn't fit
with the families; they were married and didn't fit with the singles; they
were relatively new so didn't often get called on for leadership responsi-
bilities; they felt unappreciated and unloved. Kathy felt rejected by staff
who seemed jealous of her close relationships with students. "Because she
could help them adjust to the language and culture better," Kathy was often
asked to share an apartment with the newly arrived single women on staff,
so she moved and changed roommates repeatedly. Bill and Sharon had
burned out trying to referee relationship struggles among fractious staff,
and deal with other staff's negative evaluations of their parenting style.

The point is that good staff relationships not only make work more

enjoyable, but they are essential to the long-term viability of staff and thus
the school.

Art and Sara had come to the field as young parents of three active

boys. Paul and Kristie, whom they met at language school, had a son and
daughter right in between Art and Sara's three. As they bonded through the
common struggles of language school, they found their diverse back-
grounds held many common threads. The gals were both nurses; the guys
loved to talk philosophy into the wee hours. One family went to the MK
school and the other to the far end of the country. Even though they were
assigned to different areas of the country, when annual conference came,
their friendship took up right where it had left off. They vacationed
together and their eldest children went to college together. When one
couple went through protracted stress in their ministry, the other was a safe
haven to share feelings and frustrations. When the other couple lost two
parents within two months, the first ones they turned to were their closest
friends. They consistently say of each other, "They are closer than any of
our family or friends from the homeland. We have shared so much, of good

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times and bad. We have been enriched by working together with them."
Both couples have seen the Lord use their struggles to promote growth and
expand their ministries.

Few factors have a greater effect on the longevity, effectiveness, and

overall job satisfaction of missionaries than the quality of interpersonal
relationships among co-workers.

Some Stressors that Affect Relationships

Some stressors are due primarily to the unique situation of a small

cultural enclave set in an unfamiliar host culture. Others stem from the fact
that many MK schools are short staffed and have a high turnover rate, and
all relate back to the fact that we are all imperfect specimens of a fallen
humanity. As administrators we should learn to recognize and seek to
eliminate or minimize these stressors, or even turn them to our advantage.

Relationship Stressors

· burnout

· time crunch interference with spiritual nurture or relationships

· unrealistic expectations; surprises when reality is different from

expectations

· low level but constant culture stress; homesickness

· inappropriate job comparisons

· over familiarity due to close community

· women's issues (ministry role, finding a niche, friendships, family

priorities, PMS, menopause)

· singles issues (ministry role, housemates, friendships, implications

of friendships with opposite-sex staff, social acceptance among
marrieds)

· gossip, cliques

· lack of forgiveness, bitterness, jealousy

· legalistic or libertine attitudes

The fact that staff at an MK school is a very tightly knit community

can become a significant relationship enhancer. As staff members share

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their experiences and feelings and consciously work together toward shared
commitments and goals, they build bridges of common bonds. When
people freely and often express their appreciation and friendship to one
another, and when they devote quality and quantity time to relationship
building, a basis for mutual trust and edification becomes apparent.
Barnabas and Paul established a successful mentor-protege pattern in the
lives of John-Mark and Timothy, which we would do well to emulate in the
missions community. Barnabas' persistent faith in John-Mark and his
willingness to go out on a limb for a missionary who had quit after not
even a full term, is an example and a challenge to us in following through
on the mentoring relationship.

Another tool for enhancing relationships is the idea of accountability

partnerships. These have been very successful in helping individuals attain
their God-given potential, and providing stability when adversity comes to
challenge our faith or our calling to the ministry of MK education.

Even a successful ministry as a missionary will not fulfill our needs.

God has created us so that only he can satisfy our deepest needs when we
are in right relationship to him. He is a relational God, and in his image are
we designed as relational people. God said "It is not good for man to be
alone," but often our instincts are to withdraw from relationships when
we're in trouble, just when we most need other people.

Relationships are a gift from God to be nurtured, protected,

developed, and enjoyed. They are part of the plan to help us achieve our
potential and become more like our Lord. What about the quality of your
relationships? Would you reply "Staff meetings have gone real smoothly
this quarter" or "Well, we have a terrific Bible study group on Thursdays"
or "I have a great time with the ladies in the Seeker group"?

The question was about relationships, and your answers are about

ministries. They're not the same thing. Without these "ministry
relationships" some people would have nothing. If all our "relationships"
are tied to our ministry, we are ripe for burnout. Those of us who think we
can make a go of our ministry "on our own" are suffering from the "angel
syndrome," behaving as if we don't have the same needs as ordinary
mortals just because we are serving the Lord.

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We all need more than God and a best friend. We need a group of

supportive relationships. The reason is simple: having more than one
person in our lives allows our friends to be human. To be busy. To be
unavailable at times. To hurt and have problems of their own. To have time
alone. When that happens, there are others available to step in, if we have
cultivated good relationships within our network of friends and
acquaintances. This supportive group may consist of any combination of
family, friends, and coworkers, but we should be aware of the potential pit-
falls of concentrating our relationship web in any one of these categories.
One who says "All my friends are my family" has perhaps never ventured
out of the safety of his childhood to risk a mature relationship with others.
Another whose circle of friends is limited to her coworkers may face great
difficulty should she have to make a career change. Staff at an MK school
are particularly susceptible to this risk because coworkers become almost
like family, and they make up almost the entirety of the cultural grouping
from which we draw our close relationships.

Strengthening Relationships Among Staff

The Bible clearly mandates that Christians are to develop intimate

friendships with one another (Rom 12:15; Gal 6:2). But fellowship and
community are more than potlucks and volleyball, coffee and coffeecake.
Community is the weaving of lives into the Body of Christ--building each
other up, sharing joys and sorrows, caring about each other's needs and
holding one another accountable. We know that, but how do we help
individuals become a community in which vulnerable members feel free to
share and bear one another's burdens?

Denny Rydberg, in his book Building Community in Youth Groups

(Thom Schultz Publications, 1985), gives a model for preparing
individuals to move progressively along the steps from bond-building to
opening up, affirming one another, stretching one another, and ultimately
going together into the "real world" to make an impact together for the
Lord. He suggests a wide range of activities that will develop skills and
deepen the sense of community at each level of experience. You have
probably used a number of these or similar activities with the students at
your school.

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Surprisingly enough, many of them can be very effective in helping

staff open up to one another and build stronger relationships, particularly
at the beginning of a school year with new and returning staff just
beginning to find out about each other. Even when working with adults it is
good to remember the principles we use in teaching kids: people learn best
when they are part of an active learning environment --the experience
forces them to be involved. We remember longest the things we learn by
discovery, when the learning takes place from within.

Bond-building activities are problem-solving tasks that force

individuals to work together. They are non-threatening, fun, short, shared
experiences where everyone struggles together to solve a problem and
overcome physical or psychological barriers. Getting everyone in a group
over a barrier, or setting up the familiar "trust fall," where an individual
stands on a raised platform and falls backward into the waiting arms of his
teammates. This can be done in an outdoor setting, at a staff picnic or
outing. For a quick opener at a staff meeting have groups of ten get in a
circle, extending their right hands inward to take another's hand. Then
repeat the process with left hands, making sure that no one is holding both
hands of the same individual. Once the group members are in this knot, tell
them to untangle without letting go of hands. Have them try doing it
without talking!

At a staff luncheon, have everyone stand in a circle as close together

as they can. Stretch a rope around the outside of the circle, and have them
sit down. Place the fixings for sandwiches or subs and sodas around the
outside of the circle, and have them make lunch for one another. No person
can prepare or ask for food for himself, and you may further stipulate that
no one may feed himself. These activities need to be followed with a
debriefing where individuals express their feelings of fear, frustration,
gratitude, or triumph in conquering the problem as a group.

Opening Up

When a group cares enough to listen intently to what every individual

has to say, the group comes alive. A sense of unity surfaces, friendships

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develop, and barriers break down. Opening up involves risk on the part of
the individual and response on the part of the group. We usually tend to be
"on guard," and to protect ourselves, so we often need specific help to open
up. The leader needs to set the example by listening carefully, using
encouraging, warm body language and asking clarifying questions. This is
not designed as an occasion to deal with issues or begin resolving conflicts,
rather one to encourage mutual confidence so that we hear and value
another's thoughts.

You can begin with a series of "forced choices," such as "Which of

these two words best describes you?" and have individuals move to
opposite sides of the room to indicate their choice of, for example, lion or
lamb; pillow or rock; day or night; daisy or rose; steak or hamburger,
occasionally asking one or two to volunteer the reasons for their choices. In
a more formal setting, you might ask everyone to bring an object to the
meeting that represents some aspect of their current relationship to God,
and tell the group what it means to them. We had a lot of fun at a staff
retreat when everyone wrote down something about themselves that they
thought no one else knew. These were then listed on a handout sheet and
staff were given five minutes to find out who matched up with which item.
Then as a group we got to hear the details about which one had piloted a
cruise ship, or who had brought another person back to life, and so on.

Affirming

Mark Twain once said "I can live for two months on one good

compliment," yet many of us can go for weeks on end without handing one
out. It probably is not that no one deserves to be complimented, but we are
not in the habit, and need some practice. In order to affirm one another, we
can't be afraid to say "I love you" or "I appreciate you because . . . " in
front of a group. It is important speak directly to the person, use their first
name, and be specific. Encourage one another to give examples, but beware
of "back-handed" compliments. We may also need practice in accepting
compliments, without denying or minimizing, simply saying "thank you."

Perhaps my most enjoyable exercise came at a recent staff meeting.

We dividend into groups of about ten, and read I Cor. 12:1227 together.
Then each one in the group made a list of the group members, and

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nominated each one as a specific "body part." The nominations were then
shared around the circle, giving examples to back up the perceptions. One
staff member commented later, "I don't normally like warm, fuzzy type
activities, but that was very profitable." How long has it been since you
gave a compliment good enough to live on?

The Role of Administrator

As administrators, we can set the stage for vibrant, growing

relationships among our staff. Planned activities such as staff retreats,
frequent get-togethers for subgroups among the staff, prayer breakfasts for
the men, tea-time for the ladies, volleyball games or an afternoon excursion
to a shopping mall, or gathering to watch the World Cup Final or the
World Series in someone's home, will enhance the possibilities for good
staff relationships. An open door policy in the administrator's office will
allow questions to be resolved before they become issues. Staff meetings
need to allow plenty of time for open interaction, not just rushing through
the agenda in order to get on to "more important" things, like the
maintenance projects in the afternoon. Frequent, positive communication is
vital to "oiling the works" and reducing frictions. A weekly staff announce-
ment sheet can help keep everyone informed.

We need to be on the lookout for signs of over-commitment that may

lead to stress-induced relationship problems. Folks who are on the edge of
burnout often respond in ways that damage relationships. Administrators
need to be on the lookout for those whose stress level is rising to the point
where they are candidates for burnout. We need to work with our mission
boards and school board to provide adequate staff for the program that we
are trying to run for our students. Short staffing will produce short tempers
very quickly. Job descriptions of staff positions should have built in
safeguards against over-commitment, and administrators should frequently
remind staff to examine their level of activity and commitments. Often new
staff arrive with lots of enthusiasm and idealism, wanting to "dig in and get
involved." They get involved in too many things, and as the school year
progresses find themselves getting more and more stressed with class
preps, correcting papers, class activities, coaching, discipling, outreach,
and "just helping out this one time" in another special program or activity.

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If we are closely in tune with our staff, we can pick up on potentially

dangerous precursors to burnout. Other staff may be struggling with the
loss or illness of loved ones in the homeland, the wayward behavior of their
kids, or their own loneliness or culture stress. Empathic counseling and
more important, sympathetic listening can avert or minimize the effects of
relentless stress. Communication is the key, both on the group level and the
individual level.

Obviously no one administrator, not even an administrative team, can

have this kind of close communication with all of the staff. In order to help,
we have set up a "mentor-protege" system that comes into play before the
staff member arrives on the field. The mentor ideally writes to the
prospective staff member to give details of housing arrangements, what
things to bring, and begins the process of getting acquainted. (We often
match up families with kids of similar ages.) They set up the house and
furnishings, fill the fridge with breakfast foods for several days, meet the
family at the airport, and help them settle in. The new family has meals
provided in various staff homes for the first week or so, which gives them
more opportunities to get acquainted and begin friendships. The mentor
introduces them to the town, culture, how to pay bills, what to expect at
holidays, and tries to give them advance warning of the details around
school that everyone else takes for granted. This is in addition to the field
orientation and the administrative introduction to their job responsibilities.
The mentor relationship often continues as a "best friendship" as time goes
on, and a web of interrelationships builds.

What Do You Do with Diversity?

Any group of individuals working together in the close proximity that

we experience on the campus of an MK school is made up of diverse
personalities, diverse philosophies, and diverse ways to implement
philosophies. It is important to take advantage of diversity and enjoy it
rather than wish for everyone to take the same approach to a problem. We
need to listen to a variety of viewpoints and encourage teamwork by giving
everybody the opportunity to get involved.

Choose committees for diversity in order to benefit from a spectrum

of opinion, to get input, to resolve issues, and to make recommendations.
We need to establish an atmosphere that encourages expression and makes
individuals feel that they have been heard, not just listened to. We can

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emphasize our common goals, and seek common ground. Our attitudes
should reflect enjoyment of the diversity that God has brought together.

It is important, however, that we communicate with prospective staff

before they commit to come, regarding what they can expect when they
arrive on campus in terms of the overall philosophy of the school, vision,
goals, approach, and expectations. The ethos of the school should be
clearly conveyed during the application process. Is the school typically
conservative? Broad-minded? Eager for new ways to do things? Strongly
traditional? Is the structure flexible? What do you expect the school to be
like ten years from now? It is not fair to recruit strongly independent,
creative thinkers, or "idea people" to become a part of an institution that is
highly resistant to change and then resent or resist their penchant for
innovation. Nor will a successful working relationship be easily established
and maintained if a conservative traditionalist joins a community of "free
spirits" and is disregarded or ignored as just a "wet blanket." Once again,
the problem is not with the diversity of approach. Diversity is healthy. The
problem comes in how we deal with the diversity.

Survival When Relationships Don't Work

When I was asked to discuss this material at the MKOA conference in

Guatemala, we were going through a period of great difficulty in
relationships among staff at our school. It seemed ludicrous to present a
workshop on "Staff Relationships That Work" when it didn't seem they
were

working. But as we struggled through the year and sought to resolve

the difficulties, some principles became more and more real because we
had to put them to the test. This article is not written because we have all
the answers, but because we have had to ask all the questions and the Lord
is still teaching us where to find the answers. It is necessary to ask the
question, "What happens when relationships aren't working?" How does
an administrator deal with that kind of situation?

Do:

The first, most important (and most easily forgotten) principle is to

pray. Pray together as an administrative team and pray with those who are
directly involved in the strained relationships, but do not "pray about it"

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with any others. It is not fair to those who are struggling with a difficult
circumstance to bear the additional burden of having it spread around
among their coworkers.

Pursue the relationship and concentrate on finding more and better

ways to communicate. Seek out times to be together on the other person's
"turf," where they will feel more comfortable and confident.

Persevere, since strained or fractured relationships do not appear in an

instant, nor do they disappear quickly. Make it one of your priorities in
time and energy to promote healing among injured brothers and sisters.

Give others the benefit of the doubt. "There is at least one thing that I

don't know about this situation" (Don Boesel).

Look for outside help. An independent assessor, counselor, or perhaps

someone from mission headquarters could be invited to come alongside
and provide counsel and encouragement, not only in the midst of the stress,
but also in its aftermath.

Don't:

Don't just ignore the situation. It won't go away. Don't delay or put it

off. Time will only make it worse.

Don't withdraw. You need the support of your spouse and friends

now more than ever.

Don't gossip or seek to gain a following for your point of view.

Relationship issues must remain only with those directly involved.

Don't posture or make strong, categorical statements. Make sure your

words are sweet and tender, in case you have to eat them later.

Don't set policy based on an isolated incident. Now is not a good time

to rewrite the staff manual. However, if the issue deals with something that
had not been clearly set out in previously published policy, make a note to
have the school board look at how a similar situation could be prevented at
a later date.

There may come a point in working through a staff relationship

problem that you realize that the individual philosophies are too divergent,
or the parties remain unwilling to work together in order to achieve a
harmonious working relationship. At that point, the decision has to be

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made that will allow for a separation or dismissal of those who cannot
happily work together on the team. Be willing to stand firm for the good of
the ministry.

It is especially important to follow established procedures for

separation, and fully document the steps that were taken in the process. A
frequently updated notebook detailing the issues and the attempts at
resolution (including dates) should be kept in the administrator's private
files. It may even be worthwhile to get legal advice when you first take an
issue of this sort to the board, to insure that there will not be legal
repercussions later.

A Relationship Covenant

Several years ago, a group of staff joined together to put in writing an

approach to relationships that would be biblically based and specifically
appropriate to the circumstances of the community in an MK school. They
presented the results of their study at one of our all-staff meetings, and then
summarized them in a "Relationship Covenant." Their insights were so
valuable that we had them printed up as a bookmark and gave them to
everyone on staff. Perhaps they will be helpful for your situation as well.

Conclusion

The ministry of MK education affects the work of missionaries in all

the countries that your school serves. When we are effective in our work,
others are encouraged and enabled to concentrate on their work.
Conversely, when there is an unsettled atmosphere at the MK school, many
other ministries can be adversely affected. It is a favorite strategy of the
enemy to attack where he can do the most widespread damage, and the MK
school is a favorite target. We need to have our defenses strong and our
personnel prepared for battle. As we strengthen our own relationships and
provide an example for the students to build their relationships on a firm
foundation, we prepare a new generation to establish their own lifestyle of
growth in Christlikeness. In the high intensity stress of ministry overseas,
interpersonal relationships can be the key to maintaining equilibrium for a
frazzled faculty. Those who take the time to build rich friendships,
encourage one another in ministry, support one another in adversity, and

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edify one another in love have invested in an antidote to burnout and can
effectively model Christlikeness to students and the national community.

Relationship Covenant

In dependence on God, I covenant to:

Honor other people's boundaries as well as my own.

Exemplify respect when giving or receiving criticism.

Pray daily for those with whom I have conflict.

Forgive others even if they don't ask for forgiveness.

Resolve conflicts with the party directly involved as soon as is

appropriate, using Biblical principles.

Be a peacemaker, speaking so as to edify others.

Bibliography

Boundaries

(Cloud and Townsend, Zondervan, 1992).

Building Community in Youth Groups

(Denny Rydberg, Thom

Schultz Publications, 1985).

Communication at Work

, and Style Profile for Communication at

Work

(Gilmore and Fraleigh, Friendly Press, 1985).

Restoring Your Spiritual Passion

(Gordon MacDonald, Oliver

Nelson Publishers, 1986).

Reprinted, with minor editing, with permission from World Report,

September/October and November/December 1996.

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46.

Promoting Staff Continuance

David K. Wilcox

This discussion does not include all the important variables regarding

staff continuance. Individual human motivations and the working of the
Spirit of God are simply beyond statistical analysis. But through research,
trends have been identified which help us understand the issues.

Factors We Can Influence

Commitment.

Besides being committed to God, an MK caregiver has

made a commitment to an organization, i.e.: the mission and/or the school.
That commitment can be nurtured and strengthened, or it can be
undermined and broken. Organizational commitment, as defined by
sociologists, is "the relative strength of a staff member's willingness to
exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and belief in and
acceptance of the goals and values of the organization." (Mueller, C.W and
J. L. Price, Economic, psychological, and sociological determinants of
voluntary turnover. Journal of Behavioral Economics 9 (1990), pp. 321
335)

MK caregivers who see the mission and school as making their

personal desire to serve possible are most likely to renew.

Nurturing commitment begins with a clearly articulated mission state-

ment for the school and sending mission. With that mission statement
clearly understood, the staff member must feel an invitation to be a partner,
not a hired hand. Overseas educators stay longer as they sense that the
organization is moving along with them, facilitating their ministry, and
valuing their contributions. Schools must regularly articulate their vision
and encourage staff to remain focused on the goals they share in common.
This personorganization linkage was the most significant of all variables
examined in distinguishing who remains overseas.

Job Satisfaction.

MK educators don't go overseas in order to look

for personal satisfaction; they go in response to a call from God. But once
on the field, a missionary teacher's intention to extend service is associated
with the degree to which that person senses "a good fit" with the ministry
assignment. Job satisfaction means comfort with role clarity, role

Promoting Staff Continuance

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significance, autonomy, authority relationships, sense of competence, work
load, and peer relationships.

Administrators can shorten a teacher's length of service overseas by

inattention to the fundamental issue of job satisfaction. Is the position
reasonable? Is it a good match with the educator's areas of competence?
Are accountability procedures clearly established and is each position given
significance?

Spouse's Job/Role Satisfaction.

For married staff, the issue of a

spouse's job and role satisfaction is even more important than personal job
satisfaction in influencing length of service. If a mission teacher feels his or
her spouse is happy about work or role, then the couple is likely to remain.
The converse is true as well. What is the implication? When considering a
couple for an overseas ministry, the fit must be a good one for both, or they
probably won't stay more than one term.

Cultural Adjustment

is another variable significantly affecting the

length of service decision. The school can have a great influence on the
staff members' cultural adjustment, beginning before the new staff member
arrives overseas. MK school directors and home office mission personnel
have issued consensus statements at the MKEA and MKOA regional
conferences which assert the importance of pre-field and on-site
orientation. Choosing a big brother or big sister for newly appointed staff,
sending school policy manuals and handbooks, updating outfit lists, and
double-checking travel plans are all ways overseas schools can send the
message that the new staff member is valued and eagerly anticipated.

Once on the field, the adjustment process is long and sometimes

difficult. Planning several days of meetings before school begins is im-
portant for orientation, but there is too much to learn in too short a time.
Orientation must be ongoing, and must be deliberately monitored.

Constructing a Plan.

The good news is that MK and international

Christian schools can make a difference by influencing some of the vari-
ables associated with the continuance decision. The research indicates that
to promote lengthened service, school leaders must:

· Strengthen the linkages between individual school personnel and

the school and/or mission.

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· Analyze the positions assigned to school personnel to determine if

the positions are reasonable. Administrators must seek ways to improve
actual work experiences and pay careful attention to the match between
person and position.

· Develop long term plans for the ongoing cultural adjustment of

new staff. This should include both pre-field orientation and on-field
induction programs.

· For married personnel, school and mission leaders must determine

whether clearly defined positions or roles exist for both individuals. Both
must be qualified, needed, and desirous of filling the openings. Alter-
natively, some schools may need to increase their flexibility in determining
what constitutes an acceptable ministry assignment for the spouse.
Whatever the expectations for spouses, they must be clearly explained and
accepted.

Sponsoring missions expend great effort in identifying and processing

new school personnel. Likewise, overseas Christian schools must do their
part to retain their staff. During eleven years of MK school administration,
I was amazed at the way the Lord provided for our schools' needs. I saw
the sovereignty of God in the coming and the going of staff. While we may
understand the factors better through research, we should never forget that
God will build his church, will provide for our needs, and will equip us for
the tasks he has set before us.

Ed. note: David K. Wilcox wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on "Overseas

Educators' Intention to Extend Service: A Discriminant Analysis."
(University of Illinois, 1994) This chapter is excerpted, with minor editing,
by permission from World Report, November/December 1995.

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47.

Effective Parent-Teacher Partnerships

David C. Pollock

"If you're in trouble in school you're in trouble at home." This parent-

to-child statement reflects one type of parent-teacher partnership which
was common in the not-so-distant past. It indicates a relationship between
the parent and teacher that is considerably different from what is com-
monly observed in many educational situations today. Too often parents
and teachers may see themselves, or place themselves, in adversarial roles.
This posture undermines our ability to provide an optimum educational
experience for the student. Teachers and parents working together is a
concept that needs to be reemphasized in Christian education, both in the
home country and mission school settings.

Motivation for Partnership

What attitudes and perspectives motivate the building of an effective

parent-teacher team relationship? First, teaching must be done with the
whole person in mind. In the educational process, teachers are not simply
pouring data into the minds of students. They are making disciples.

Second, teachers must remember that parents are the primary educa-

tors who started the educational process before the teacher, and will have
continued input throughout the school years and beyond. In society at large,
many parents are failing by abdication or inability in this task. As a result,
the teacher today assumes a larger role in the life of the student. However,
this ought not to be the case with parents who are committed to obey
Christ, the Master Teacher.

Third, while the teacher's role is complementary and supplementary in

the developmental process, his or her responsibility and influence remain
profound. The fact is, the teacher may be the primary actor in many areas
of learning. It is critical that teachers recognize the tremendous power of
their position and that they, like parents, have the ability to build up or tear
down, to undermine or support their students.

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Teacher Initiative Essential in Reaching Parents

In building an effective partnership, the teacher must usually initiate

the relationship. There are often factors which may stand in the way of
parents fulfilling their responsibility and pursuing this partnership. Parents
may wrestle with a sense of inadequacy or guilt from past failures, or they
may be uncertain about the teacher's willingness or desire to establish this
partnership. Teachers cannot wait for parents to act, but must take the init-
iative and reach out to the parents of their students. However, having the
motivation and a willingness is not enough. Teachers need the
understanding and skills with which to build a successful partnership.

Family Dynamics Impact Partnership

In order to build this team in Christian international education and

enhance a teacher's ability to contribute to the partnership, several things
are essential. The teacher must pursue an understanding of the unique
dynamics of the family in the transcultural community. Dr. Kelly
O'Donnell published a study in The Journal of Psychology and Theology
(Vol. 15, No. 4, 1987) which should be required reading for all mission
teachers. This article describes the stages of development in the parents
(individually and as a married couple), the stages of development of each
child, and the stages of development in the area of service and ministry.
These stages intersect to produce behaviors and responses at one point in
time that may be very different from actions at another point. Transitions
and cross-cultural adjustments are overlays in the family dynamics that
greatly influence interpersonal relationships, both in and out of the family
unit. Teachers must also realize that their own responses are affected by
these same influences.

When a family moves transculturally and internationally, parents

develop a new list of conscious or unconscious concerns which must be
addressed. Concerns about their children's education, cultural influences
and identity, the future of both parents and children, maintaining healthy
family relationships, and health issues as well as spiritual needs head the
list. This cornucopia of concerns, coupled with a sense of powerlessness
which often characterizes people in transition, causes great conflict and
concern for one's own life as well as one's dependents.

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As a result of these pressures, parents may lash out at the teacher or

school administrator. Parents may blame educators for failing to do what
they consider to be necessary things for a good education or to properly
care for their children. This criticism may come, although their children are
actually receiving fine education and care. If this behavior occurs early in
the parent-teacher relationship, it may create attitudes and postures that
prevent the development of a healthy team relationship. Mature educators
must carefully evaluate the nature of the complaint. Is it legitimate? Is it
realistic? Is it appropriate?

For example, students may tell their parents about a teacher who

really cares. This teacher spends long hours after school in his or her office
just to be available to listen, advise, or be a friend. The students appreciate
the sacrifices this teacher makes to spend time with them, knowing that his
or her spouse and children are spending many evenings at home alone.
Parents may express gratitude to the school's administrator because they
appreciate what this teacher provides for their children. What happens,
however, to the teacher who comes next? How do new teachers respond
when the complaints come, either to them or the administrator? How do
they answer the criticism that they are not as accessible as the previous
teacher was? They may need to ask themselves, "Is it legitimate for parents
to expect a teacher to always be accessible to students? Is it legitimate for
students to expect teachers to be available when they have a problem?"
The answer is Yes. "Is it realistic to expect a teacher to be available if it
means consistently leaving the family alone? The answer is No.

Missionary parents often struggle with a sense of guilt. They fear their

decision to move overseas will have a negative or even destructive impact
on the lives of their children. Once again this guilt may become "educator
directed." Parents may make high, perhaps even unreasonable, demands for
special, individual attention to their children. Occasionally anger ac-
companies these demands. Teachers must not allow this anger to prevent
the building of the team relationship which will, in fact, help restore to
parents a sense of power and reduce the causes of their guilt. It is critical
that mature educators develop a sense of resilience as well as
responsiveness to parental needs. Educators must be nonjudgmental and
non-condemning in facing pressure from a family.

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The school administrator or mission agency can assist teachers in

building this partnership and contribute to a positive outcome for families.
Teachers need the training provided at pre-field seminars as well as
on-field. They need resources to help them understand and deal with the
transcultural adjustment, stress management, and parenting in a
cross-cultural setting.

The Importance of Good Communication

Good communication is another key in building the team relationship.

Once again, the professional educator must take the initiative. Parents need
general information about school programs and the calendar of events.
Information about school rules and policies as well as the consequences for
breaking the rules needs to be communicated to parents clearly and early.
Unwritten rules and policies that catch people by surprise evoke a sense of
conflict which leads to criticism and undermines cooperative relationships.
There needs to be personal communication with parents about the good as
well as the bad. The teacher who has been in regular contact with parents
on a personal basis, reporting on the progress of the student, is on a much
better footing to deal with problems than the one who has been silent and
makes contact only when problems arise. It is always a good rule of thumb
to include a positive comment about the child even when a problem or
conflict is being reported to the parents.

An issue in parental communication concerning a child in the

Christian education setting is a matter of our own effective response to
Scripture. Matthew 18:15 ff. gives clear direction in terms of dealing with
issues. The child needs to be confronted with the issue on a one-to-one
basis, prior to the involvement of anyone else. If the child responds
appropriately, then Jesus indicated we have "won a brother [or sister]." It
is a good idea that when "bad news" is sent to the parents, the student is
given a copy so that he understands the nature of his offense and its
seriousness, and can thus be encouraged to change that behavior.

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Coaching Parents

Another key in building this team relationship is the ability of the teacher
to function as a coach. This is an important, although not always popular,
role. The teacher who sees the student daily in the classroom is often able
to view issues from a very different perspective than the parent. Because of
his or her position and perspective, the teacher who has developed a good
interpersonal relationship with the parents may be able to coach them in
their responses, decision making and parent-child communication. This
role of coach can work to the advantage of everyone. Although it is
important that teachers recognize this opportunity and responsibility, they
must at the same time tread lightly. The teacher must never confuse his role
as a coach with that of the parent and risk becoming an invader of other
people's families. That works to no one's benefit and everyone's detriment.
Tact is critical. The teacher, exercising wisdom, discernment and
sensitivity, must know when to stand for parents or with parents and know
when to intervene.

When a child is functioning poorly in the classroom and showing

evidence of not adjusting well, there are several areas that may be
examined. There are contributing factors which must be taken into
consideration by the teacher. First, the child is profoundly affected by the
parent-to-parent relationship. Conflict within the home will oftencause
unacceptable behavior patterns outside the home. One needs to be very
aware, however, that not all behavior struggles are due to conflict in the
parents' relationship. Teachers need to be very careful in this particular
area. They must guard against making assumptions or invading
inappropriately. Teachers must be aware and sensitive.

A second area where children's adjustment may be affected is whether

or not they perceive they are valued. The attitude displayed by the parent
toward the child, in terms of the amount and quality of time spent with the
child, are key issues in the child's perception of being valued. Teachers and
caregivers at boarding schools need to be sensitive to many issues which
may reflect the parents' attitudes. Does the child regularly receive mail
from home? Are the parents willing to attend events that are important to
the child? Do they pick children up on time at the end of semesters or for
breaks? These factors along with many others, may indicate the parents'
valuing of the child. When a teacher or boarding home parent has reason to

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believe that a child is not getting sufficient input at this point, it is not
improper for them to gently and lovingly make the parents aware of the
child's need.

The third area for sensitivity is evaluating how the child perceives the

value of the work that the parent is doing. Children respond to the attitudes
of their parents. If parents are dissatisfied and reflect that dissatisfaction
(whether with nationals, co-workers, or the agency under which they serve)
the children will raise questions. They will question the value of their
parents' ministry or the worth of being where they are. Many children are
able to pay whatever price is necessary, along with their parents, as long as
they know that it is worth the effort and sacrifice. Parental expressions of
discouragement often are taken very seriously and internalized by children.
The school plays an important role in affirming and reinforcing the
children's sense that their parents' work is valuable. If teachers talk
positively about what parents are doing and if, as part of the school
program, the faculty, staff, and students are involved in ministry, then the
child will develop a keener sense of what Mom and Dad are doing in some
other part of the country or continent.

A fourth area to which teachers must be very sensitive is the issue of

the confidence in God. In the missions community we are not only dealing
with the normal challenges of overseas living and adjustment, but there is
the spiritual overlay as well. We are engaged in this particular ministry
because of what God has said or the way he has led in our lives. When the
Great Commission was given, it was also with the promise "And surely, I
will be with you always, to the very end of the age." Teachers and parents
must recognize not only the imperative nature of the command, but also the
faithfulness of the Commander to live out His promises. Joseph endured
the ups and downs, pressures, and difficulties, in light of the reality that
although others meant it for evil, God superintended his life and turned
what might have been destructive into that which was directive. Children
are watching to see whether or not we have this same confidence.

It is important to be aware that parents are at risk, either by living in

communities where there is danger, or by having ministries and responsi-
bilities that are themselves dangerous, such as flying airplanes. This
imposes a particular stress on their children. Often an underlying sense of
dread may impact the child's behavior and attitudes. This sense of threat

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needs to be reckoned with, and both parents and teachers need to seek ways
to give comfort and confidence to the child in turmoil.

I hope that as we develop our philosophy of Christian education, the

opening comment in this article would be altered to something like, "If you
are in school you are in the care of a team of parents and teachers who are
lovingly discipling you." Parents and teachers must work together in this
process of making disciples. It is time for teachers and parents to be pro-
active in developing this team relationship to accomplish this goal.

Reprinted, with minor editing, by permission from Interact, October 1993.

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48.
Relations Between Teachers
and Dorm Parents

Evan and Jewel Evans

Teachers and dorm parents must see each other as members of the

same team. This teamwork is essential in achieving the common goal of
providing the best possible care and education for MKs. Failing to regard
one another as equals, comparisons, and a lack of communication all pro-
mote an usthem mentality. It is essential that teachers and dorm parents
realize they are allies. They need each other's support and encouragement.
They also need the unique perspectives each has from contacts with stu-
dents in the dorm or classroom respectively.

How Do We Build Partnership?

First, schools can organize a prayer partner system that pairs

teachers with dorm staff members. This helps each group to develop
mutual respect and creates opportunity for them to share blessings and
struggles with each other.

Second, schools should regularly hold full staff meetings, not only to

discuss school issues, but also for fellowship and prayer together. On
occasion, it is good to forget business and have a staff social.

Third, both teachers and dorm parents should look for ways to involve

each other in their ministry

. Teachers can invite dorm parents to give

brief presentations in the classroom. Dorm parents can invite teachers to be
part of dorm events such as devotional times, outings, or dinners.

Fourth, both teachers and dorm parents should practice the art of

giving secondhand compliments

. When a teacher hears a student say

something positive about his dorm parents or about a dorm function, he
can pass that compliment on to the dorm parents (and vice versa). This
type of mutual encouragement helps to develop a deeper appreciation for
each other and for their ministry.

Fifth, during vacations teachers and dorm parents can work together

on campus projects

. Teachers can help in painting, remodeling work, or

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other projects in the dorm. Dorm parents can help teachers in arranging
bulletin boards, spring cleaning the classroom, or building projects.

The sixth way to promote partnership is to focus on the spiritual

development

of children. This requires creativity and coordination. For

example, dorm parents can correlate and reinforce the classroom curric-
ulum through their activities, especially in the area of Bible.

The seventh way to develop a team spirit is through common activi-

ties

. Working on committees, singing in musical groups, playing in athletic

events, serving on a task force, or attending a Bible study promotes unity
and a sense of oneness. We get a deeper appreciation of each other's
personalities, gifts and ministries when we work, play, and pray together.

Eighth, teachers need to be sensitive in giving homework assign-

ments

that involve help or supervision. Younger children often have as-

signments which require adult help or supervision, such as oral reading or
Bible memory work. For a parent, such an assignment may take only half
an hour to complete, but in a dorm with four first-graders, it would take the
dorm parents two hours.

In assigning homework, teachers should carefully consider the ages of

students, the number of boarding students in their classes, the nature of the
assignments, and the amount of time it will require from dorm parents.

The Importance of Proper Communication

Sometimes the difficulty in relations between teachers and dorm

parents lies in knowing exactly what information to share about a student
and with whom to share it. Sometimes teachers pass on information that
dorm parents would prefer not to hear. At other times, teachers do not pass
on to dorm parents information that they would have told the parents.

On one occasion, a teacher failed to communicate to us that one of our

dorm students was failing second grade. The situation did not come to light
until mid-trimester when the teacher talked to the child's parents. When the
parents asked for our input concerning their daughter's academic problems,
the request took us completely by surprise. Once communication was
flowing between ourselves and the teacher, we could work together as a
team to help the child, and she passed second grade. Teachers should also

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inform dorm parents about missing or late assignments. It is difficult to
monitor the situation if they aren't aware of it.

Second, teachers should report new patterns or changes in behavior

and academic performance. Dorm parents do not need to know about every
problem that occurs in class, but they should know about developing
patterns of behavior or sudden, significant, unexplained changes.

Third, dorm parents should be informed about disciplinary action

taken at the school. It puts dorm parents in a difficult position if they learn
about disciplinary action indirectly. Dorm parents need to know so they
have a complete understanding of the students in their care.

Fourth, teachers should share information regarding health issues. If a

student has difficulty paying attention or struggles to stay awake, it could
be a sign of a lack of sleep or a more serious physical problem.

Flfth, teachers should tell dorm parents about students' positive

actions, attitudes, or accomplishments. Dorm parents, like other parents,
usually hear from teachers only if there is a problem. Dorm parents want to
hear the good news so they can celebrate accomplishments and reinforce
positive attitudes.

Sometimes dorm parents need to share information with teachers.

Events such as the serious illness of a parent, the death of a family pet, the
prospect of the family moving to another station, or redeployment to
another country should be shared. These events may significantly affect the
student's academic performance or progress. A dorm parent should share
news about the student's home situations as any parent would.

The Dangers of Inappropriate Communication

In our efforts to work together as a team and share information about

students, we must guard against sharing unneeded, negative information.
Too much discussion about children with problems can lead to their being
labeled as problem children or troublemakers. It can be difficult, if not
impossible, for a child to overcome a label, especially when it is passed
around in the entire community.

Efforts to build a sense of teamwork among teachers and dorm

parents may be undermined if other people are allowed to drive wedges

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between these two groups. Each group must respond cautiously to
comments and criticism about the other. For example, sometimes a student
approaches a teacher with complaints about his dorm parents (or vice
versa). If this happens, the teacher should listen, but remember that every
story has two sides and he is hearing only one side of it. Sometimes the
teacher may feel it necessary to ask students about their own actions,
attitudes, or role in the situation. At other times, the teacher may need to go
to the dorm parent in question and have a discussion.

It is important that students have the assurance that adults will listen

and that the lines of communication are open. This is especially true if a
student mentions any type of sexual misconduct. Inquiries should be made
immediately, but this matter needs to be handled very discreetly.
Information should be shared only with those people who must know in
order to investigate the claim.

Sometimes parents, fearing reprisal against their child, will share a

complaint or concern about a teacher with a dorm parent (or vice versa).
Parents, teachers, and dorm parents should not only support one another,
but encourage each other to take concerns directly to the person involved,
as outlined in Matthew 18.

The Need for Separation

Having emphasized the importance of nurturing a team spirit between

teachers and dorm parents, we must also stress the importance of
maintaining the separation and distinctiveness of these two groups.
Separation between the academic world and the dorm is essential so the
child can have a safe haven. Teachers need to establish their own discipline
and authority in the classroom, so students can return to the dorm without
fearing that they face "double jeopardy."

If there is no separation of authority between the dorm and classroom,

the child feels trapped with no place to go to as a haven. We have talked to
MKs who did not feel close to their dorm parents. However, often because
of a caring teacher, they felt their growing-up experiences were positive
ones.

As dorm parents and teachers, we must remain unified in our goal of

providing the best care possible. However, we also must maintain our
unique, separate roles that enable us to provide balanced care for MKs.

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Reprinted, with minor editing, with permission from Interact,

December 1993.

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49.

You Are a Protector

David C. Pollock

The old TV program Mission Impossible introduced each episode

with the phrase, "If you accept this assignment...." The missionary teacher
or dorm parent begins "Mission Possible" with a similar, though unspoken,
phrase. If you accept this assignment you are not simply teaching English
or Math or History. If you are a boarding home parent, you are not simply
checking dirt under finger-nails, keeping order in a dorm, or enforcing
lights out. If you accept these tasks, you are accepting the role of an elder.

"To the elders among you ... Be shepherds of God's flock that is

under your care, serving as overseers not because you must, but because
you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to
serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the
flock." (I Peter 5:13).

As an elder, you are a shepherd with many roles, among them to be a

protector of those in your care. Matthew 18:114 makes clear the
important role that you as a teacher or boarding home parent have in any
situation, but especially in those where parents are not immediately
available to the child. In these verses, Christ warns about the seriousness of
causing a child to stumble. Failing to protect vulnerable children may be a
major factor that causes them to stumble.

Dealing With the Past

I have often commented that I feel like a "lightning rod" for horror

stories of mistreatment of children, including missionary children. Conver-
sations with teenagers and letters from fifty-year-old MKs reflect pain
caused not only by the perpetrator of a wrong action, but by those who
failed to protect the victim. (Even as I wrote this article, the phone rang and
an MK college student called to ask for help related to an abuse situation
from her childhood.)

We cannot undo the things that have happened to young people in the

past. Wounds leave scars. However, we can help with their care and
provide comfort in the process of healing. We can and must take steps to

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ensure that there are fewer and fewer of these incidents in the future. Part
of this process must include proper training for caregivers and raising the
awareness of all those whose lives bear direct impact on missionary kids.

Facets of Protection: Protection from Adults

The task of protecting MKs is multifaceted. Some facets are obvious.

The first facet of protection must be protection from abuse in any form.
Physical abuse, sexual abuse, and aggravated psychological abuse must be
addressed with vigor. Careful recruiting and selection, proper training, and
active supervision of personnel must be developed in the MK care sector of
every mission agency. Every staff and faculty member must understand
that the responsibility to watch for abuse, and intervene.

When adult MKs report abuse taking place over a four-decade period

in a school at the hand of the same individual, I am appalled that not one
faculty member ever effectively raised a voice in protest and protection.
When mission agency and school executives reject the pleas of adult MKs
and deny the charges of groups of former students related to sexual abuse,
it is an indication of a lack of spiritual maturity and commitment in leader-
ship. New laws reaching across borders and extending statutes of
limitations may accomplish what righteousness has not.

A forty-year-old MK working for a government agency in Asia told

me that he had not been in a church since he was sixteen. His memories of
being tied to a tree and left outside all night as a six-year-old child (along
with a string of other horror stories from his experiences with a dorm
father) had successfully driven a wedge of bitterness into his life. Through
tears he asked, "Did God do that to me?" A sixty-five-year-old retired
missionary reflected similar pain after having his daughters abused. "We
trusted people we thought to be godly to care for our children, and look
what they have done."

A fifty-year-old abused MK, reflecting on his treatment at the hands

of school personnel, commented that "individuals removed from their own
cultural environment with its recognized constraints and restraints may act
in destructive ways considerably different from what their behavior would
have been in their own culture." If it is true that the danger of misconduct

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increases, then our vigilance and readiness to contain and protect must also
increase.

Protection from Other Children

There are other areas of protection we must address in addition to

safeguarding children from the misconduct of adults. A second facet of
protection involves shielding children from the cruelty of other children.
This is also a part of our trust. The bullying of smaller and younger
children must not be regarded as a fact of life. It is behavior that is
unacceptable. Sexual abuse does take place among kids, and adults need to
be alert and open to the cries for help from victims.

Cruelty and injustice are not atypical behaviors of kids, and therefore

adults must work at correcting and protecting. The bed-wetter should be
protected and not shamed. The child who is slower to develop physically
and sexually should be appropriately encouraged by adults who recognize
that everyone has his or her own timetable for development. Adults need
great awareness, discernment, and sensitivity in protecting children from
mockery and other cruelties.

Protection from Self

Sometimes a child needs protection from himself or herself. Anna

Mow, in the old volume, Your Child, tells the story of one young boy who
was apparently out of control. In desperation, she wrapped her arms around
his thrashing body until he finally relaxed. After a few minutes he turned
to her and quietly said, "It's OK. I can hold myself now." A wise adult may
need to intervene to save the child from self-destructive behaviors in a
variety of areas. Seeing oneself as a protector instead of a prosecutor
modifies one's attitudes and actions toward the child.

For many years I have been impressed with the message of my friend

Glen Taylor of Missionary Health Institute, who pleads for "invitations to
live instead of invitations to die." Abuse of another person sexually,
psychologically, physically, or even spiritually invites that person to die, to
lose important aspects of personhood. Misuse of humor, breaches of trust,
misuse of authority and power, injustice, and a failure to model mercy and
grace are all invitations to die.

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Culture and Protection

In an international MK school, cultural issues and differences which

can be causes of pain and damage add complexity to the task of protecting
children. Humor is also cultural. Jokes about a person or any perceived act
of demeaning may be amplified by cultural differences. Failure to consider
the implications of cultural differences in response to rules and
expectations may cause damage. Even with lowly tasks such as toilet
cleaning, sensitivity to the student's cultural background is essential. Being
the minority is always difficult, and being mocked as a minority, even good
naturedly, may be cruelty.

Comfort: A Primary MK Need

Sharon Wilmer, a counselor of third-culture kids, wrote a letter

several years ago in which she commented that one of the primary needs of
MKs is for comfort. A multitude of MKs have responsed dramatically to
that letter. Good, casual, warm encouragement is often needed, but there
are also times when the understanding which is communicated by
comforting is crucial.

MKs often live with a constant sense of impending disaster if their

parents are at risk in dangerous areas or are in high risk jobs. Children
from these missionary families may respond by acting out in troublesome
ways. We may mistakenly focus only on their actions and may miss the
opportunity to address the needs and fears that caused their behavior. They
desperately need adults who will respond with comfort and understanding
rather than hostility and rebuke.

Needed: A Child-Centered Approach

Several years ago, I heard a colleague of Mr. Rogers, host of a

children's TV program, speak. He shared his insights regarding Rogers'
approach to children in his TV program. We would do well to consider and
adopt these attitudes in our care and protection of MKs.

· Understand what the child brings to the situation.

· Act as an adult with child awareness.

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417

· Acknowledge that humans make mistakes. Seek forgiveness for

your own mistakes, and then be patient and willing to forgive
theirs.

· Give children an invitation to safe relationships, recognizing that

availability and receptivity are the keys.

· Affirm the child in ways that are both honest and obvious.

· Provide silence. Conversation isn't always essential. Be comfort-

able with time to process.

· Be gentle. Remember, gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit.

Protection of children requires defensive actions against the things

that threaten their safety and well-being. It also requires a commitment to
respond proactively and to do the right things as well as to guard against
the wrong things. Perhaps if we truly act as protectors in the lives of
children and young people, we will minimize the number of horror stories
we hear from them ten or twenty years from now. If you accept this
God-given assignment of caring for MKs, you are a protector.

Reprinted, with minor editing, with permission from Interact, October

1993.

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50.

Children with Special Needs

Wayne D. Lance

Part I: Introduction

As a child grows and develops, parents often wonder how he

compares with what we have come to accept as "normal." It is not unusual
for a mother or dad to observe apparently unique characteristics in a son or
daughter and to begin to suspect that the child is different from other
children of the same age and sex. Questions might include:

Don't you think he looks a little heavy for his age? Should we put

him on a diet?

She's so skinny. Do you think she's malnourished?

Our colleague's girl was reading by age five, but Jeffrey's not reading

yet. I wonder if he has a learning disability. Could he be dyslexic?

She's only three and is already devouring books. Do you think we

should try to get her in a program for gifted preschoolers?

She's so quiet. Will she be prone to depression?

My child never sits still. Could he have one of those attention deficit

disorders we've been hearing so much about?

A Tendency to Compare

Comparing our own children against some standard or other "norm"

is hard to avoid. We may begin to view some characteristic, some attribute,
as a bit extreme, perhaps even abnormal. And because we want to do what
is best for our children, questions arising from our concern result in
suspicion that something about our child's development is not quite right,
or that we must be doing something wrong in our parenting or teaching.
Even if we don't actively voice these questions, they are in the back of our
minds.

When children enter school and begin to develop complex academic

skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic, more opportunities arise to
trouble Mom and Dad as they compare their children with classmates.
These informal, yet insightful, forms of evaluation continue as children
progress through junior high and high school.

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Parents living overseas, and especially those teaching their children at

home, follow a different scenario. They do not have a sampling of their
children's peers to use as a yardstick, and they may find this lack of age-
mates an obstacle to evaluating their children's progress. These parents
may wonder how their children are measuring up in relationship to children
in their home country. If for some reason parents suspect a child is not on
track, various troubling explanations begin to loom in their minds.

As Christian parents, we believe that each boy or girl is unique, a

special creation of God with his or her own learning style, personality
traits, and intellectual potential. We value these individual differences--yet
when the differences become extreme we are often troubled. And if these
differences seem to interfere with learning, we begin to search for an
explanation.

A significant number of children from all cultures, social classes, and

ethnic backgrounds have what we refer to as "special needs." It is not
surprising, therefore, to find these special needs existing among our
population of missionary children.

MKs and Special Needs

When CHED (Children's Education department of Wycliffe Bible

Translators) receives letters asking for help in evaluating and teaching a
particular child, that child is usually having difficulties in reading or
writing, or perhaps in the development of speech and language. Often the
letter suggests that some kind of learning disability or special need exists,
but a comprehensive assessment and diagnosis usually has not been done.

While missionary children are often stereotyped as being above

average in academic achievement, the fact is that a range of achievement
does exist. Variation in behavior and susceptibility to physical, mental, and
emotional handicaps are conditions from which MKs are not immune.

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We can find a clue to the number of special needs among MKs by

looking at data from public schools. Approximately 10% of school-age
children in the United States are receiving some type of special education
services.

These children are not all in separate classes with a special education

teacher. Most with special needs attend regular classes for most of the day
and receive assistance from a speech and language or resource specialist
for short periods during the week. Other teachers with special training
provide instruction in such areas as adaptive physical education and
hearing or vision impairments.

We should point out, however, that this 10% figure may not apply

across the board to populations of MKs. MKs are not necessarily repre-
sentative of the socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural populations in the U.S.
MKs come from families with a typically lower incidence of handicapping
conditions than found in the general population. In addition, many MKs
come from countries other than the U.S., where a different set of criteria
may be used to determine eligibility for special education.

Another factor to consider in trying to project the number of MKs

with special needs is that in order to qualify for special education services
in the public schools, children must be assessed and must meet certain
criteria. Of necessity, a label must be applied to a child (mentally retarded,
hearing impaired, visually impaired, orthopedically handicapped, learning
disabled, and so on) before services are offered.

On the other hand, MKs living overseas, whether being taught at

home or in a local or boarding school, do not have to pass through
screening, assessment, and the subsequent receiving of a label in order to
have their special needs met. A major advantage of small group and
individual instruction such as received by most MKs is that, by virtue of
this type of instruction, their unique needs are more easily met without
being assessed and labeled as "special." Thus they are never formally
identified and counted as "exceptional children," as they might be in a
public school setting.

In spite of these differences between public schools and home

teaching situations or small private schools, we may expect to find a small
but significant number of children from missionary families manifesting

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difficulties in learning. Some may have hearing or vision impairments;
others may be delayed in the development of speech and language. If the
letters we receive are a reliable indicator, quite a number will have some
characteristics common to the group of children we call "learning
disabled."

Part II: Definition and Terminology

What are the implications of describing a child as having "special

needs"? Are children properly labeled "exceptional" or "learning disabled"
when they are experiencing difficulties in learning to read and write? Is
failure to master mathematics an indication of a learning impairment?
What do educators mean when they use terms such as "handicapped,"
"impaired," or "disabled"?

The majority of parents teaching overseas will not come across the

terms commonly used by special educators. A few, however, may en-
counter unfamiliar and confusing terminology when corresponding with
public schools, talking with consultants, or reading curriculum materials.
Parents who refer a child to an agency or specialist for assessment will be
confronted with terms derived from medicine and the social sciences.

A More Positive View of Exceptionality

Every discipline has its own nomenclature, jargon, and the inevitable

proliferation of acronyms. Special education is no exception. As programs
for exceptional children have increased in number and complexity in recent
decades, in both the United Kingdom and the United States, educators and
psychologists have invented a whole new vocabulary for labeling children
and specifying services.

In an attempt to move from the negative connotations surrounding

certain designations to more socially and politically acceptable terms,
terminology has changed over the years. The time has long passed when we
would speak of individuals with limited cognitive ability as "morons,"
"idiots," "imbeciles," or "mentally deficient."

Now we are more apt to classify such persons as mildly, moderately,

severely, or profoundly mentally "disabled." Some educators even avoid

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the term "mentally retarded" altogether and describe a person as being
"developmentally disabled" or "developmentally delayed."

Individuals with physical or sensory impairments formerly labeled

"handicapped" are now spoken of by those in the caring professions as
"physically challenged." The concept behind this change is the greater
probability of assisting people in achieving their full potential if we focus
on a positive view of what they can accomplish, rather than the negative
consequences of their condition.

Some argue that members of the helping professions are merely

coining euphemisms. While we do often change terms because we don't
like the meaning associated with the old ones, we also know that labels can
result in self-fulfilling prophecy when used to describe a class of
individuals.

Studies demonstrate that parents and teachers often set their expec-

tations for a child's performance based on limited information. When
guided by a stereotypical, one- or two-word label which supposedly defines
a child's capabilities and potential, we respond accordingly. How we label
or describe a child can make a decided difference in how we teach the child
and how he or she will eventually achieve and compete.

Technology and Special Needs

Scientific, educational, and technological advances have altered our

understanding of what certain persons can and cannot do, and this has had
an impact on the terminology we use. Individuals who in the past would
have spent a lifetime in a custodial institution are now living at home or in
a foster home, attending public schools, and participating in varying levels
of productive work. The terms "retarded" or "crippled" no longer aptly
describe the potential and actual status of many who formerly received
these designations and lived in large institutions.

Changes in vocabulary have also come about through a better

understanding of the underlying condition responsible for the problems
children experience in learning. For example, "minimal brain dysfunction"
was a controversial term a few years ago.

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Now we find a greater emphasis on the hyperactive or hyperkinetic

aspect of this syndrome, along with the associated difficulties in attending
to tasks. The terms now being used are "attention deficit disorder" (ADD)
and "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" (ADHD), which we will
discuss later.

Recently, some children with autism are beginning to communicate

through a new technique called "facilitated communication." If this
technique is as effective as some believe, the term "autism" will likely be
replaced with a new designation reflecting a more positive outlook than the
public associates with the current label.

Computer technology is opening new vistas of opportunity for study

and work for persons with sensory and physical impairments. When
measured by standards of productivity in the workplace, "handicapped" no
longer seems an appropriate term for individuals who hold down jobs and
function independently.

Definition of "Special Needs"

In this series, we have chosen to use "special needs" to refer to

children experiencing more than the usual difficulties in learning common
tasks and school-related material. Though most children at some point
struggle with academics, the term "special needs" implies more than a
variation in aptitude or a temporary difficulty in learning a given subject.
We use it here to refer to a relatively small percentage who have been
diagnosed as having an impairment serious enough to significantly
interfere with learning.

Educators use the term "special needs" to describe a child who differs

from the average in mental characteristics, sensory abilities,
communication abilities, social behavior, or physical characteristics to such
an extent as to require special services. The term "exceptional child" may
be considered a synonym for "special needs." (Sometimes the term
"exceptional" is used as an all-inclusive term, not only of individuals with
special needs but also of those who are gifted and talented.)

Federal and state laws specify criteria for determining how much a

child must differ from the average in order to be classed as exceptional or
having special needs. Typically, precise guidelines for providing special

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services are written into laws and regulations by states, provinces, and
federal governments. For example, regulations specify the degree of
hearing loss necessary for the hearing impaired to receive services. For a
child to be classified as learning disabled, there must be a significant
discrepancy between his measured ability and his success in basic academic
subjects.

Normal Curves and Deviation

School psychologists often describe a child's measured performance

on a given test as being within the normal range or as deviating from the
norm to some degree. In determining if a child is exceptional and in need of
special services, the question must be answered regarding what constitutes
a significant difference from the norm.

Intelligence and other types of tests are normed and scores are plotted

along the normal curve. Approximately 68% of any normally distributed
population is expected to fall within one standard deviation of the midpoint
of this curve. Some 95% of a normally distributed population falls within
two standard deviations. Usually those who diverge more than two
standard deviation marks are considered to constitute exceptionality.

We indicated that approximately 10% of the school-age population in

the United States is receiving some type of special education service. Most
of these children are in regular classes, receiving services from a specialist
part-time. A much smaller proportion are actually in self-contained, special
classes. The decision to label a child as "exceptional" or "special" is not
taken lightly. In fact, there are now many safeguards in place to prevent
this from happening unnecessarily.

By definition, a special needs child differs from the average in mental

characteristics, sensory abilities, communication abilities, social behavior,
or physical characteristics to such an extent as to require special services.

A Matter of Style?

The distinction between special needs and learning style is often

blurred. Confusion exists over whether a child is an exceptional individual

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requiring specialized services, or merely one who prefers a learning style
that requires some adaptation of the way material is presented or the way
the learning environment is structured.

A boy who is a bodily/kinesthetic learner, a mover, may not do well in

a program basically designed for a linguistic learner. He may even appear
to be failing miserably in learning to read. Some teachers and parents may
be inclined to label him as learning disabled--that is, requiring special
education, when in reality what is needed is a modification of the way the
reading curriculum is presented.

Learning style may be thought of in terms of preferences, attributes,

or abilities which contribute to how quickly and easily an individual is able
to learn. One person may be oriented toward the auditory channel, another
prefers the visual mode, while yet another is more a kinesthetic learner.
Other styles may be described by the approach being used, such as logical-
mathematical, social-interpersonal, or global-analytic.

It is important to recognize the learning style preferred by each child,

as well as to understand the teaching style which fits that child. For the
purpose of our discussion here, the point being emphasized is that failure
to do well in school because of a mismatch of learning style and teaching
style is not evidence that a child is a candidate for special education.

Being Objective

It is nearly impossible to be objective about our own children. We

parents have a built-in tendency to protect our offspring. Sometimes this
subjective view causes us to overlook their faults and weaknesses. At other
times, we become overly concerned, even unduly critical, with expectations
unreasonably high. Parents teaching their own children have the added
frustration imposed by being both parent and teacher. Somehow this tends
to magnify aspects of behavior and performance.

For these reasons, it is not unusual for parents teaching their own

child in an overseas situation to view their child as exceptional, when in
fact he or she is well within the range of normal behavior and performance,
or merely has a different learning style than the parents are used to.

On the other hand, it is also possible to overlook a potentially serious

special need and pass it off as a mere idiosyncrasy or personality trait. This

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occurs most often when the special need is not physically obvious or easily
diagnosed by a physician or specialist. Advice from experienced teachers,
other parents, and consultation from a specialist can help parents arrive at a
more objective understanding of their child's adjustment and progress in
learning school subjects.

Among the most common category of exceptionality is "learning

disability," or "LD." Closely associated with that term is "dyslexia," and
more recently "attention deficit disorder."

Part III: Learning Disabilities

The largest category of exceptional children being served in the public

schools of the United States is termed "learning disabled." Slightly less
than 5% of all school-age students are thus identified.

There has been a fairly steady increase in the number of youngsters

being served under this category since about 1977, while during the same
period the number of children served in most other categories has remained
relatively constant, or in some instances even decreased.

With these statistics in mind, it is not surprising that many of the

letters coming to the CHED office from parents and teachers include
requests for information about learning disabilities. Some ask for general
information, but most of the questions are specific to an individual child.

Following are examples of problems associated with learning

disabilities. The quotations are taken from letters written by parents
teaching overseas.

"He understands and recalls well what is read or said to him. He will

consider something for a long time, then come back with excellent
questions later. At the same time, he has a short attention span and
consistently moves or fidgets when asked to concentrate on something. He
is easily distracted. I often need to touch his hand or call his name to keep
his attention."

"Reversal of letters, numbers, and words has continued beyond what

we consider a natural developmental stage. He will frequently read words
from right to left by reading the final letter and guessing the rest of the
word based on context."

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"When reading, he will often lose track of which word or even which

line he is on."

"After three years of home teaching, he is just now beginning to read

somewhat independently on a first-grade level."

"His self-confidence is beginning to suffer."

"He has a problem taking tests. We go over the material together and

I know he knows it, but he may score very low on a written test. Then the
next week he may get 100%."

"While working on complex math problems (story problems), he

seems to get lost in the information."

"He often seems to be daydreaming."

"His dad never did well in school either."

"He has developed a habit of looking at others' work to get cues

rather than doing his own work."

Though these comments reveal only part of the concerns and frus-

tration experienced by parents, they are indicative of the most recognizable
and typical characteristics of children with learning disabilities.

Characteristics

No matter how we describe it, the learning disabled category is not a

homogeneous group. There are, however, a number of characteristics which
set these children apart from their peers.

Not every child identified as learning disabled demonstrates all of

these most common characteristics, but at least a few of these behaviors
are usually present:

· hyperactivity

· poor motor coordination

· visual, auditory, or other perceptual impairment

· short attention span

· distractibility

· impulsiveness

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· lower than expected levels of achievement in learning academic

skills and performing other cognitive tasks.

Because of problems experienced in learning, loss of self-confidence

is not unusual, as well as feelings of frustration and a sense of failure.
Sometimes emotional and behavior problems develop. These manifesta-
tions can lead to frustration by parents and teachers and a vicious circle of
failure, criticism by adults, self-criticism, and more failure.

All the characteristics typical of learning disabilities trouble parents

(and children as well) to some degree, but the resultant academic under-
achievement usually causes the greatest concern. In many cases, it is not
until the child begins to demonstrate difficulties in learning to read, spell,
write, and so on, that parents really become aware that there may be a
problem. The preschooler or kindergartner may have had problems in
attending, or atypical perceptual or language disorders, but we often
attribute them to immaturity and individual rates of development.

Learning Disabilities Defined

Definitions of a learning disability by experts in the field differ, but

the following one proposed by the National Joint Committee for Learning
Disabilities in 1981 is generally accepted:

Learning disabilities is a generic term that refers to a

heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant
difficulties in the acquisition and use of listening, speaking,
reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities. These
disorders are intrinsic to the individual and presumed to be due
to central nervous system dysfunction. Even though a learning
disability may occur concomitantly with other handicapping
conditions (e.g., sensory impairment, mental retardation, social
and emotional disturbance) or environmental influences (e.g.,
cultural differences, insufficient or inappropriate instruction,
psychogenic factors), it is not the direct result of those con-
ditions or influences.

No doubt one of the reasons for the increase in the number of children

served in this category over the past fifteen years is due to the inclusiveness
of the definition. The use of the terms "intrinsic" and "presumed," coupled

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with a broad area of possible difficulties in language and thinking skills,
serve as an umbrella for special needs not otherwise accounted for.

While a vision or hearing impairment, or even mental retardation, may

be quite obvious (or at least subject to accurate diagnosis and
measurement), learning disability is much more difficult to "get a handle
on." As a result, it becomes a catch-all category when no other excep-
tionality can be identified. If the child is having difficulties in learning and
there seems to be no verifiable sensory, mental, social, or emotional
explanation, then it is presumed that there must be some neurological
explanation.

It should also be mentioned that in earlier days of special education,

many children were labeled mentally retarded who now are categorized as
learning disabled. This trend has to do with a number of factors, including
changes in definitions, the use of different measuring instruments, socio-
political factors, and court rulings which have restricted which students
may be labeled as mentally retarded.

It is appropriate at this point to mention something about dyslexia.

The term refers to difficulties in the use of written words, including reading
in the narrow sense of decoding words. It also includes the broader
understanding of reading involving meaning, usage, pronunciation,
spelling, and writing. Most educators subsume dyslexia under the umbrella
of learning disabilities. Special programs in public schools are usually
staffed by specialists who serve all children with learning disabilities,
although there are reading specialists who concentrate on the teaching of
remedial reading.

Causes of Learning Disabilities

Trying to determine the etiology, or cause, of a disability is what

makes the category of learning disabilities so difficult to pin down. When
does a serious problem actually exist, and when is the child just slower
than his peers in learning to process information? Or perhaps the child just
has a unique means of perceiving the world. Does this necessarily mean he
is disabled in some way?

The fact is, we can seldom determine the basic cause of the child's

problems in learning. Does the child have some type of brain injury,

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perhaps because of trauma at birth or during early childhood? Is there some
structural difference in the child's brain? Are hereditary factors involved?
Or is the condition due to biochemical irregularities brought on by diet or
other imbalances in the child's system? It is rare that we can accurately
determine and verify the cause. Much has to be inferred from the child's
behavior and from performance on various tests and instruments.

Schools are caught in a dilemma: they know the child is having

serious learning problems, but they cannot legally identify and serve a child
in special education without sufficient evidence that the child is
exceptional. They must establish that there is some cause other than
environmental or cultural factors, or lack of opportunity. How can this be
established if there is no observable handicapping condition?

Criteria for Identification

The public schools try to respond to this dilemma by establishing

criteria for identification as learning disabled and qualification for special
education. In the category of learning disabilities, a severe discrepancy
between a child's measured ability and his success in basic academic
subjects must be established in order to qualify. In other words, the pupil
has to be markedly behind his peers on measures of achievement, as well as
presenting evidence of some intrinsic condition.

Although the criteria for what constitutes a severe discrepancy varies

among the states, a rough rule-of-thumb is that a child must be at least one
year behind in the primary grades, and two years behind in grades four and
up. Another way of looking at the discrepancy is at least one-half year
delay for each year of expected achievement.

Space precludes a review of assessment instruments and practices in

this brief discussion of learning disabilities. Suffice it to say, there are
many controversial approaches and numerous testing instruments available
when it comes to finding and documenting evidence that a child has an
intrinsic condition presumed to be due to central nervous system
dysfunction.

Fortunately, parents teaching their children do not have to be

concerned about qualifying a child for special education. They do not have
to go through a comprehensive assessment process and pin a label on their

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child. While they may be spared these, they are faced with a search for
answers and must make choices when their child begins to demonstrate
difficulties in learning and they sense that all may not be as it should be.

These parents want to know, "Do I change my methods and materials

to correct or remediate some basic underlying neurological process that is
responsible for the difficulty, or do I ignore the `cause' and focus on
methods and materials to directly teach the skills the child is expected to
learn?"

Part IV: Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
and Methodology

Before addressing the topic of methodology, a few comments are in

order regarding attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a
condition with some of the same characteristics observed in children with
learning disabilities. This condition has received considerable attention in
recent years, and parents should be aware that such a special need exists, in
case they encounter this term. The important point is not the category
under which a child is labeled but whether his needs are being met in the
educational setting.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

According to criteria published in the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, a child classified as
ADHD displays signs of developmentally inappropriate inattention,
impulsivity, and hyperactivity inconsistent with his or her chronological
and mental age. The symptoms are most obvious in situations that require
self-application, as in the classroom. The signs are less apparent when the
child is in a new or a one-to-one situation.

Children with ADHD tend to:

· be very fidgety

· be easily distracted

· have difficulty following instructions and remaining seated

· talk excessively

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· interrupt others

· lose things

· engage in physically dangerous activities without considering the

consequences.

It should be noted that these symptoms are not a problem unless they

are outside the range of normal behavior for a child's mental and
chronological age. Some of the above symptoms are typical of very young
children and, in them, should not be viewed as abnormal.

Mary Cahill Fowler, the parent of a child with ADHD, begins her

guide for other parents by writing, "Maybe you know my kid. He's the one
who acts before he thinks. It's usually upon some rash impulse that scares
the living daylights out of me, like seeing how fast he can ride a Big Wheel
down a long, steep, curvy hill."

From this vivid introduction, the author goes on to describe the

characteristics of these children and to provide practical suggestions for
coping with their educational and behavioral needs. This guide is recom-
mended reading for parents who have a child with an attention deficit
problem.

Most schools group attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder under the

category "learning disabled," although some educators and psychologists
prefer to think of ADHD as a behavioral or emotional disorder. The
important point is not so much the category under which the child is
labeled as the fact that his or her special needs are being met in the home
and/or school.

Methods and Materials

What really matters for a child who has difficulty learning is not the

label that characterizes the condition, or even being able to determine the
cause of the condition. More important, it is being able to decide what can
be done to enhance opportunities for that child to learn the skills necessary
for success in life.

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The question which arises is often something like this: "Do I change

my methods and materials to correct or remediate some basic underlying
neurological process that is responsible for the difficulty, or do I ignore the
"cause" and focus on methods and materials to directly teach the skills the
child is expected to learn?"

Educators have argued this same question for years. Some have spent

whole careers developing specialized methods and materials designed to
"correct" visual or auditory perceptual problems. Others have come at it
through the central processing stage: teaching strategies involving memory,
classification, reasoning, and evaluation. Still other educators have taken
the position that trying to eradicate some underlying cause is of little or no
lasting value, and the way to really help children learn is to directly teach
the skill you want them to learn.

This writer leans in the latter direction. In reviewing the research, I

find that the use of activities and worksheets designed to correct some
problem associated with visual or auditory perception, laterality, and other
so-called prerequisite skills are of questionable value. By contrast,
approaches and materials designed to directly teach skills are most apt to
achieve the desired results.

It is not within the scope of this article to go into detail on methods

and materials for teaching children with learning disabilities. There are
many excellent books on this topic. The following general suggestions
may be helpful to the parent with a child who demonstrates some of the
characteristics of learning disabilities.

The Teaching Style

· Be flexible. What works successfully with other children may not

work with a child who has a learning disability or other special need.

· Help your child know what to expect and when to expect it. Many

children who have difficulties in coping with distractions and in making
appropriate choices are more successful with structure and routine.
(Structure and routine should not preclude flexibility to accommodate
individual differences and use of teachable moments.)

· Be aware of frustration levels. Students with learning disabilities

are easily discouraged. Once the level of frustration has been reached,

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withdrawal of privileges, punishment, or even rewards seldom motivate the
child to succeed with the learning task. Make certain that the student's
academic tasks are on his ability level.

· Explain, demonstrate, and obtain feedback. Give directions in a

variety of ways. These children often do not really understand typical
instructions related to school subjects; even if they understand them, they
may not know how to apply them.

· Help your child see the relevancy of what he is expected to learn.

Don't take it for granted that he will automatically make a connection
between assignments and what goes on in the outside world.

· Use charts and other visual representations of work to be

accomplished and completed. It helps students to have a tangible means of
keeping track of their own progress.

The Teaching Environment

· Minimize distracting stimuli. This does not mean removing

pictures and bulletin boards and having a sterile environment, but rather
providing a work space for the student where he or she can get away from
distractions when necessary.

· Increase opportunities to learn through the favored channel (or

learning style). In some cases, the student may learn best through the very
channel through which he is most distracted. Select the stimuli that come in
through this channel.

· Shorten work periods when necessary, interspersing quiet seat

work between periods of activity. Tasks which a student finds enjoyable
should follow tasks he or she finds difficult. Short, successful work periods
are better than longer, less successful ones. As the child's ability to
concentrate increases, gradually lengthen the work periods.

Adapt Materials and Methods

· Point out important information in textbooks. Help the student

identify main ideas and sort out the important from the less important.

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· Tape record textbooks and other reading materials. Sometimes this

can be done by other children in the family.

· Use high-interest/low-vocabulary materials as alternative means

for presenting similar information.

· Assign independent work in addition to teacher-directed work.

Assignments students can do independently develop their feeling of
competence and success.

· Teach specifically what many children generally learn incidentally.

Do not assume that because of age and overall intellectual ability a student
knows and understands what other children of that age have already
learned.

· Use multisensory approaches to teaching difficult subjects. Don't

rely only on the channel the student seems to prefer.

· Use tools to compensate for disabilities. Calculators, typewriters,

and computers can often enable a student to succeed when otherwise he
might fail.

Teach Learning Strategies and Study Skills

· Teach your child how to organize facts. This includes identifying

and isolating facts, deciding which facts are important and of higher or
lower order, and placing them within an organized framework.

· Help your student see how books are organized (e.g., table of

contents, headings, subheads). Some students have no idea how a typical
textbook should be read. Teach such aspects as previewing, using advance
organizers, understanding critical vocabulary, and self-questioning.

· Teach outlining and note-taking. Use meaningful material, not just

outlining and note-taking for the sake of the skills themselves.

Behavior Management and Social Skills

· Reinforce the student for demonstrating appropriate study skills

and other behaviors. Use both tangible and intangible rewards appropriate
to age and maturity of the student.

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· Ensure that your child understands what behaviors are expected.

Use written behavioral contracts to which you can refer. Help him to
monitor his own behavior through charting.

· Allow natural consequences to occur as a result of the child's

behaviors. Ensure that he or she knows beforehand what the natural conse-
quences are apt to be.

· Involve students in establishing household rules and review them

periodically.

· Require your child to make eye contact when you are giving

information. Maintain close physical proximity when talking to him.

· Have the student read, or read to him or her, stories about other

children with difficulties in learning. Talk about how the child feels when
he cannot succeed.

Language Arts

· Provide alternate means for using language. Don't let the lack of

ability in written expression hinder the development of expressive
language. Allow the student to dictate stories rather than always writing
them. If you have one, use a computer in place of paper and pencil. Use
spelling checkers with computer word processing programs.

· Use freestyle writing to help students develop a sense of written

expression. The goal is for students to get their thoughts and feelings on
paper without concern for spelling, sentence structure, or syntax.

· Read good, age-appropriate literature aloud to your children.

Immerse them in hearing the written word spoken.

· Teach spelling in meaningful contexts. Take words that the student

misspells in his own writing. Make spelling tests in the form of short and
complete sentences.

· Use a three-pass repeated reading method in reading books or

stories that interest the student.

· First, read a short selection as a reading model. Have the student

follow along.

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· Second, have the student read the paragraph aloud with you.

Pause slightly at the end of sentences, but read at a natural pace.
Do not stop for words he does not know.

· Finally, have the student read the passage by himself.

If a marker is helpful to a student when reading, have him block out

the text above the line he is reading. This does away with the text he no
longer needs, but encourages him to keep tracking to the next line below.

Part V: Sensory, Physical, and Behavioral Disorders

Public Law 94-142, comprehensive federal legislation enacted by the

U.S. Congress in the 1970s, identifies ten categories of exceptionalities as
follows:

· learning disabled
· speech impaired
· mentally retarded
· emotionally disturbed
· other health impaired
· multihandicapped
· hard-of-hearing and deaf
· orthopedically impaired
· visually handicapped
· deaf-blind.
We have discussed children with learning disabilities and attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder, the latter usually considered a subcategory of
the former. Here are some brief descriptions of other categories.

Sensory Disorders

Loss of sight or hearing, two of our primary channels of receiving

sensory information, can be a serious handicap to learning unless
adaptations are made in the methods and materials used for instruction.
Many of us, especially as we grow older, experience some degree of visual
and hearing impairment. But in most cases, corrective lenses or hearing
aids make these decreases in acuity a minor inconvenience rather than a
major handicap. However, a child born with a vision or hearing impair-

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ment, or who suffers the loss of either of these channels at an early age,
must receive both medical assistance and specialized training in order to
develop language and acquire other skills in keeping with his full potential.

We will not attempt to specify the criteria used by schools for

classifying children for the various categories of vision and hearing loss.
Programs differ depending on whether a child has partial or low vision, is
blind, or is hard-of-hearing or deaf.

The extent to which children with sensory losses are mainstreamed

into regular classes often depends on the degree of vision or hearing loss
and the child's ability to cope in a typical classroom environment.

Parents need to be aware of signs that a child is experiencing a loss of

vision or hearing, conditions not always obvious in very young children.
Children raised in environments where they are subject to infections and
other increased risks for damage to the sensory mechanisms should receive
screening and physical examination any time that parents or teachers have
reason to suspect that vision or hearing may be impaired.

Can a child with significant impairment in vision or hearing be taught

by parents in the home? Or must such a child receive instruction in a
special education setting from a teacher trained to work with visual or
hearing impairment? This question is not an easy one to answer--nor is the
answer without controversy among professionals in the field of special
education.

With recent innovations in technology such as special adaptations and

assistive devices for computers, children can take advantage of powerful
tools for learning within their homes if parents can obtain the training,
hardware, and software necessary to use these programs and devices.
However, as marvelous as the new technology is, the expense and problems
associated with getting hardware and software through customs in some
foreign countries, installing and maintaining them and using them under
less than ideal environmental conditions may seem insurmountable
obstacles for families living in isolated areas.

In addition to the difficulties inherent in taking advantage of adaptive

technology, children with significant impairments in vision or hearing have
needs beyond those that can be met by computers and specialized devices.
A blind child who may need to learn Braille and receive mobility training,

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or the deaf child who may need to learn an alternative form of
communication, are only two examples of needs that may not be adequately
addressed by parents within the home, unless of course the parents have
received the necessary specialized training.

Parents must also consider the amount of time they are willing and

able to devote to the task of teaching a child with unique needs. All these
factors should be considered prior to making a decision to home-teach a
child with a significant loss of vision or hearing.

Physical and Health Impairments

Any number of conditions are responsible for children being classified

as physically or health impaired. Orthopedic impairments, cerebral palsy,
heart abnormalities, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, seizure disorders,
and illnesses such as poliomyelitis are just a few of the conditions which
may or may not directly affect the child's ability to learn using traditional
methods and materials.

Sometimes these children can be instructed in basic skills with little or

no adaptations needed in the curriculum, but due to their physical disability
may have other needs which can be met only by physical or occupational
therapists. In other cases, cognitive and/or physical functioning may be so
impaired that the typical parent is unable to adequately teach these children
at home.

Behavior Disorders and Developmental Disabilities

Emotional disturbance may be:

· the result of biogenic factors

· associated with social maladjustment

· manifested as anxiety-withdrawal or aggression-disruption, or in

other atypical ways.

Whatever the etiology, or the manner in which the disturbance is acted

out, the impact on the family can be so disruptive that outside assistance is
necessary. When this occurs, parents and other family members may be
able to learn how to provide the support system necessary to enable the
child to function in a home-schooling situation. In other instances, both

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child and family may be better off if the child receives special education in
a classroom setting staffed by specialized teachers and therapists.

Much the same can be said for children with restricted or limited

intellectual ability. Many of them have been successfully educated within
the home. Some families who were able to provide home teaching for
nonexceptional children within the family found that the child with
development disabilities functioned better when educated in a special class
within the public or private schools.

Part VI: Some Misconceptions about Special Needs

Parents of a child with an exceptionality should be aware of some

common misconceptions about educating such children.

· If we can just pin a label on the underlying condition, our problems

will be solved. In medicine, physicians are often able to diagnose a
condition and then prescribe treatment that alleviates the problem.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case in special education. Merely giving
a series of tests and labeling a child "learning disabled," "mentally
retarded," or any other term does not lead to a tried and true prescription.

Educational diagnosis is not as precise as physical diagnosis.

Remediation or training is much more an art than a science, and there are
few areas in special education where research provides sufficient evidence
to support one method or approach as being superior to all others. A label
does not in itself automatically lead to the proper intervention. Too many
parents have spent countless dollars and hours (not to mention the
emotional cost on children and other family members) trying to obtain an
informed and accurate diagnosis--and in some cases even a "cure." This is
not to suggest that professional assessment is unnecessary, but rather to
point out that parents need to be prudent and wise with realistic
expectations when obtaining diagnostic help.

· All we can do is to give up our overseas ministry and return to our

home country. At times the problems associated with home-educating a
child with an exceptionality do seem overwhelming. The only answer may
seem to be to return home and enroll the child in special education. Yet
many parents have successfully taught such a child at home, even in
isolated settings. At times like this, they need the counsel of those who can

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help them assess their particular situation, including the demands of their
ministry and the availability of support. Then they can formulate a plan
that will best meet the needs of their particular family.

In making these kinds of decisions, it should be borne in mind that

special education in a public or private school may not necessarily be in the
best interest of the child. Much depends on the particular district, school,
and teacher where the child might be placed. And sometimes, in spite of the
obstacles in teaching the child at home, the opportunity for one-on-one
teaching in a supportive and loving environment may be what is best for
the child.

· When we compare our child with other children in our overseas

community, we think he must have a serious learning problem. It should be
remembered that the MKs with whom you make comparisons may not be
typical of children the same age back in your home country. The
comparison group of MKs may quite possibly be achieving above grade
level. This can be due to many factors, including being gifted or above
average in ability, because they have benefited from excellent teaching in
small classes, at home with an itinerant teacher, or by parents.

Your child may be quite average when compared with the normal

population, but may appear to be behind when compared with peers in an
MK group. It is important that children with average or slightly below
average ability, or those with different learning styles, are not compared
and labeled in such a way that they feel inadequate or inferior.

Getting Help

Following are a few suggestions for parents who are faced with

decisions regarding the education of a child with special needs.

Pray for wisdom in where and how to seek wise counsel.

Expect that professional educators, psychologists, and administrators

(as well as grandparents and others) will have opinions about how best to
educate a child with special needs. You--husband and wife together--
must sort out the advice you are given. The final decision is yours.

If possible, talk with other parents in similar situations.

Ask the advice of teachers who know your child.

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Consult with personnel in your organization who have knowledge

about children's education. If possible, request a visit by a specialist who
may be able to provide assessment and recommendations on site.

When visiting your home country, take advantage of the resources of

public and private schools. In the United States, public schools are required
by federal and state laws to provide an assessment under certain
conditions. Remember, however, that this takes considerable time and
requires you to be in one location for a while. If possible, visit special
programs for children who have an exceptionality similar to your child's.

Read two or three books dealing with your category of concern.

Selected Resources

The following are just a few of the many resources addressing child-

ren with special needs.

General

Exceptional Parent

. P.O. Box 3000, Dept. EP, Denville, NJ 07834.

Phone: 1-800-247-8080. $18.00 per year within the U.S.; $24.00 overseas.
A magazine especially for parents of children with special needs, published
eight times per year. This publisher also produces an annual directory of
organizations covering nearly every disability.

The Council for Exceptional Children, 1920 Association Drive,

Reston, VA 22091-1589. Call (703) 264-9467 for subscription and
membership fees. This professional organization publishes two journals:
Exceptional Children

and Teaching Exceptional Children.

National Handicapped Homeschoolers Association, 814 Shavertown

Rd., Boothwyn, PA 19061. This parent-sponsored group publishes a
periodic newsletter.

Educating Exceptional Children

(6th edition), by Samuel A. Kirk

and James J. Gallagher (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989). Used in teacher
preparation programs in colleges and universities. Provides an overview of
special education and each of the categories of exceptionality.

Technology

Closing the Gap

. P.O. Box 68, Henderson, MN 56044. Six issues

per year. $26.00 U.S.; $41.00 Canada and Mexico; $50.00 overseas. Up-

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to-date information on all forms of technological innovations for indi-
viduals with special needs: software, hardware, adaptive devices.

The Catalyst

. Western Center for Microcomputers in Special

Education, Inc., 1259 El Camino Real, Suite 275, Menlo Park, CA 94025.
Quarterly newsletter. $10.00 per year U.S.; $20.00 overseas, including
Canada. Comprehensive coverage of microcomputer use in the fields of
special education and rehabilitation.

Speech and Language

If Your Child Stutters: A Guide for Parents.

Stuttering Foundation of

America, P.O. Box 11749, Memphis, TN 38111-0749. Publication No. 11
(3rd revised edition). $1.00. Also available in Spanish and French.

Stuttering and Your Child: Questions and Answers

. Stuttering

Foundation of America, P.O. Box 11749, Memphis, TN 38111-0749.
Publication No. 22. $1.00. For parents and teachers who want to help the
child who stutters.

Speech Correction: Introduction to Speech Pathology

(8th edition),

by Charles Van Riper and Lon L. Emerick, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1989). $50.00. The text is readable and includes many
sample dialogues to illustrate therapy procedures.

Parent Articles: Enhance Parent Involvement in Language Learn-

ing

, edited by Margaret Schrader. Communication/Therapy Skill Builders,

P.O. Box 42050-P92, Tucson, AZ 85733. Phone: (602) 323-7500.
$45.00. Each article is written especially for parents.

Behavior Management

Parents Are Teachers: A Child Management Program

, by Wesley C.

Becker. Research Press, Dept. B. 2612 N. Mattis Ave., Champaign, IL
61821. Phone: (217) 352-3273. $11.95. An effective and easy-to-
understand child management program designed for parents.

The Good Kid Book: How to Solve the 16 Most Common Behavior

Problems

, by Howard N. Sloane. Research Press, Dept. B. 2612 N. Mattis

Ave., Champaign, IL 61821. Phone: (217) 352-3273. $15.95. An easy-to-
read manual for parents.

Living with Children: New Methods for Parents and Teachers

, by

Gerald R. Patterson. Research Press, Dept. B. 2612 N. Mattis Ave.,

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Champaign, IL 61821. Phone: (217) 352-3273. $11.95. Shows how
children learn behavior and then train parents to behave.

Learning Disabilities and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Maybe You Know My Kid: A Parents' Guide to Identifying, Under-

standing and Helping Your Child with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder

, by Mary Cahill Fowler. (NY: Birch Lane Press, 1990).

Characteristics of the educational and behavioral needs of these children
and practical suggestions for coping with them.

Why Is My Child Having Trouble at School? A Parent's Guide to

Learning Disabilities,

by Barbara Z. Novick and Maureen M. Arnold.

New York, Villard Books, $19.00. A practical book for parents. Explains
some of the theory behind the concept of learning disabilities, as well as an
action program for dealing with this exceptionality.

Reprinted, with minor editing, with permission from Parents Teaching
Overseas,

January July 1993.

Part VI:
Collaboration

446

Resolution VIII

Shared Resources

We, the delegates of ICMK Nairobi, commit ourselves to a
greater degree of inter-mission cooperation and sharing of
resources in developing the various programs recommended at
this conference.

Resolution III

Unity Among Cultural Groups

Whereas the distinction in the Body of Christ between
expatriates and national is artificial and inappropriate, and

Whereas the multicultural experience of MKs gives them a
unique potential for contributing to the development of unity
between Christians with different cultural backgrounds,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi commit themselves to
developing and supporting programs which will enable MKs to
foster and model Christian unity and harmonious working
relationships between all cultural groups.

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Resolution VII

New Sending Countries

Whereas God the Holy Spirit has sovereignly raised up a
powerful missionary force in the Two-Thirds World, and they
have their own particular family and MK needs,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi recommend naming a task force
of ICMK and the World Evangelical Fellowship Missions
Commission to convene a consultation for the Two-Thirds
World missionary family needs.

Resolution XI

Communication and Cooperation

In light of the many substantive resolutions affirmed by the
delegates of ICMK Nairobi, on behalf of the MKs of the world,
we commit ourselves to presenting the issues expressed in these
resolutions to those people in the organizations we represent, to
enlist their collaborative effort in addressing the yet to be
completed work before us.

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Resolution IX

MK Research

Whereas a great deal of research has been done to determine the
advantages and disadvantages which accrue to MKs growing up
in a multicultural environment, and

Whereas much research has yet to be done in this area to
provide further insights into this situation,

The delegates of ICMK Nairobi commit themselves to engage in
appropriate, rigorous and systematic research into those
additional areas which will enhance the data base and provide
for a better understanding of the MK situation.

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51.

MK Research: Notes and Observations

John R. Powell

Formal research on MKs has had a rather short and mixed history.

Only recently have concentrated and coordinated efforts been made to
better understand MKs through research. This chapter gives an overview of
research efforts to date, reports recently derived data, and points briefly to
future needs.

General Observations

Until a decade ago there was no coordinated approach for research on

MKs and their families. Most research produced between 1934 and 1989
was part of doctoral and master's studies. Most of the writing about MK
and missionary families during that period was not research based, and
little of the research was empirically based (Andrews, 1989).

During the 1970s, MK research moved into greater depth and wider

content areas. Studies by Herrmann (1977), Wickstrom (1978) and later,
Wickstrom and Fleck (1983), based on doctoral dissertations, are good
examples of increasing breadth and depth. Herrmann's work was solidly
designed and was one of few to be theory-based. Wickstrom's design
helped tease out significant aspects of boarding school influence and
personality characteristics.

Austin's annotated bibliography on re-entry issues (1983) and its

addendum (Austin and Gordon, 1986) are good examples of the increasing
research of the '70s and early '80s. Hunter's (1993) excellent article
provided a sense of direction, and his observation that there is no such
thing as a "typical MK" is well taken. He notes: "The psychological
doctrine of individual differences is an important reality, since MKs come
in every conceivable size, shape and increasingly, color and ethnic origin...
What is more, they all come from some type of family" (Hunter, 1993). He
further points out the importance of a theoretical perspective in guiding
meaningful research.

Findings from the '70s and early '80s stimulated debate as to what

outcomes result from being children of missionaries. Attention was given
to separations from parents for boarding school, the influence of factors in

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the host culture, personal integration of Christian experience, academic
outcomes, personality traits, readiness for re-entry, the qualifications for
boarding and MK school personnel, and others. Danielson (1981) and
Dillon (1983) contributed through their own dissertation-based psycho-
logical research. Sharp (1985) constructed a picture of the real MK based
on an interpretation of literature available at that time.

The first International Conference on Missionary Kids (ICMK) in

Manila in 1984 contributed to increasing this interest. ICMK Quito in
1987 included more focus on emotional, psychosocial, and relational
aspects. Delegates at ICMK Nairobi in 1989 voted "...to engage in
appropriate, rigorous and systematic research into those additional areas
which will enhance the database and provide for better understanding of
the MK situation" (Resolution IX).

Formation of the multi-mission MKCART/CORE (Missionary Kid

Consultation and Research Team/Committee on Research and Endowment)
in 1987 brought together representatives from a variety of missions to
coordinate and provide direction for research. This group has conducted
three major projects driven almost entirely by mission interests and
leadership, and has involved as many as twelve mission agencies in
coordination of the designs and data gathering.

There is a perceived tension between the purpose and activities of

missions and the conduct of solid empirical research. Myers (1997) elo-
quently pointed this out, citing a difference in the types of people in mis-
sion leadership and those in the world of research. He suggested that
research can help missions "learn their way into the future" by 1) using
research to become more effective communicators; 2) guiding research by
what we need to know; and 3) involving those who manage or carry out the
decisions or communication processes in missions (Myers, 1997).

Reapsome (1998) has addressed this tension in an Evangelical

Missions Quarterly

editorial, citing difficulties in doing research within

missions, and underlining the complementary contributions of clearly
objective

research and concentrated prayer as necessary for success.

Tension can be reduced by collaboration between researchers and mission
leaders, asking the right questions, conducting the research in a truly

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451

competent and Christian manner, and being sensitive in interpreting and
applying the results.

A Brief History

Dr. Leslie Andrews, Director of MK-CART/CORE, identified 181

documents from 19341989 including articles, theses, dissertations and
some unpublished materials. These excluded anecdotal and exhortational
pieces but included works of a theoretical and/or empirical nature as well
as other entries judged to affect missionary families. She located 3 entries
from the 1930s, 4 from the 1940s, 8 from the 1950s, and 16 from the
1960s. The increase continued in the 1970s with 36 entries, and rose more
sharply in the 1980s, with 114 in that decade.

This rise in MK research has produced significant findings which

have influenced mission policy, led to improved care, and deepened our
understanding. Earlier research considered the success of MKs, personality
development and problems of MKs and their families (1930s), adjustment
of MKs to America (1940s), problems of MKs, education of MKs, and the
family in foreign missions (1950s). Those from the 1960s were largely
concerned with MK education, others on MKs and particular mission
groups, and one on parental preparation of MKs for boarding school. The
overriding concern was with educational academic outcomes (Andrews,
1989).

Werkman's (1972) article on the hazards of rearing children in foreign

countries is representative of a budding concern regarding the effects of
growing up overseas. White's (1983) reflections on the separation
phenomenon idiosyncratic to missionary children conceptualized concerns
which were emerging in conferences, literature, and mission circles. The
stimulating article by Ward (1989) articulated elements of dynamics of the
"climate of concern" for missionary children.

The Concept of "Third-Culture Kid" (TCK)

In the 1960s, Dr. Ruth Useem of Michigan State University coined

the term "third-culture kid" or TCK, as it has become known (Useem,
1980). Useem found that children who had spent a significant portion of
their developmental years in places other than that of their parents' home
country developed characteristics distinguishing them from their

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monocultural peers. TCKs had less than full identification with their
passport country, but did not have complete identification with their host
culture(s) either. They had a sense of identity with a third culture, which
came from having experienced aspects of at least two cultures for a major
part of their developmental years. The third culture is a distinct sense of
transcendence from either culture and has a certain distinctiveness in
perspective, behavior, identity, and understanding.

Further studies were initiated by Dr. Useem and several of her

doctoral students in the '70s and early '80s. Useem sees TCKs as coming
from four separate groups: 1) the international business community; 2)
missionary families; 3) the diplomatic corps; and 4) children from military
families serving overseas. Her research and that of her doctoral students
defined and guided research about MKs.

Doris Walters (1996) developed an approach to assisting MKs which

makes use of research results and integrates spiritual, psychological and
interpersonal aspects of experience in growth, recovery or resolution.

Both experience and research show TCKs to have identifiable

characteristics which provide a sense of commonality and relationship.
Building on Useem's construct, other research, and personal experience
with MKs and their families, David Pollock of Interaction, Inc. has
developed a "TCK Profile" (see Chapter 5). His presentation of this data
has helped a variety of young people to make successful adaptations to
their "home" culture. For some older adult MKs, this information has
opened a window of understanding and release.

Uniqueness of Missionary Families

Missionary families have qualities which distinguish them from the

other three expatriate groups to which TCKs belong, as well as from
"homeside" families. They are overseas due to a firmly committed sense of
mission, undergirded by a deep faith in God and commitment to the spread
of the Gospel. It expresses itself in the vocation and career of the parents
and usually in family activities, responsibilities, and dynamics. The
missions subculture involves the ethos of a specific mission organization,
field, educational options, mission strategy, and other related areas. Very

MK Research: Notes and Observations

453

little research has been directed toward the specific dynamics of missionary
families and their effect on MKs.

Of expatriate groups, mission families are the most dependent on the

local economy, have more social constriction (due in part to geographical
isolation), use more boarding schools and national schools for children's
education, and have the lowest mean family income of all overseas North
American groups. Missionary families tend to hold different values toward
money and acquisitions, have a high value for humanitarian service, are the
most deeply immersed in the host culture, and generally have more
autonomy than other expatriate groups. They are more likely to be fluent
in the prevailing language(s), stay overseas longer, and develop higher
understanding of cultural, language, and attitudinal differences. As a group,
their educational level is above that of the average North American, they
are likely to have received more direct training for living and working
overseas, and maintain a unique support network with their constituents in
North America.

The Challenge of Research

Children growing up in this context have some developmental

determinants different than their monocultural peers, so they would be
expected to have measurably different developmental outcomes. For
example, how do such variables affect such things as personality develop-
ment, further education, vocational choice, internalized faith, choice of
marriage partner, life satisfaction, attitudes toward the church, feelings
about self, ability to resolve conflict, or parenting ability?

Hard empirical research investigating these variables and their

possible influence on MK development has been sparse. In 1986 this
author reviewed all entries relating to MKs and missionary families
catalogued in the Billy Graham Center Library at Wheaton College. Of the
326 articles, reports, and studies in that collection, less than a dozen met
criteria for solid empirical research with conceptual development and
interpretation. Many were surveys, analyses of personal anecdotes, and
organized observations. Few had empirical bases for understanding the
nuances and practicalities of MK development.

In recent years, research projects have been published in missions-

related literature such as Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Journal of

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Psychology and Theology, Journal of Psychology and Christianity

and

International Bulletin of Missionary Research

. These findings have been

useful to individual MKs, assisted missions in policy review, and have
guided further research.

Considerable impetus was given MK research by the three Interna-

tional Conferences on Missionary Kids (ICMKs) during the 1980s. The
first two addressed educational issues, boarding school concerns, family
considerations, re-entry issues and processes, and mission policies.

Formation of MK-CART/CORE

In 1987, an inter-mission group composed of representatives from

eight mission agencies and six invited researchers met at Nyack, New
York. Each mission presented a "white paper" outlining concerns of the
mission and questions for research. A consensus was reached about what
would be most useful to pursue: a better understanding of boarding
schools, qualities needed for effective personnel (teachers, boarding home
parents, administrators) and their selection, ongoing development, and
long-term tenure for desirable personnel. The means for developing
specific research programs were proposed, and an organizational structure
formed.

Thus MK-CART/CORE was born. CART stands for the Consul-

tation and Research Team, the group of mission representatives. CORE
represents the Committee on Research and Endowment, the individuals
responsible for designing and conducting research. Researchers volun-
teered to contribute their time and expertise without remuneration and met
three times a year to design research, assign responsibilities, and for other
conceptual and logistical purposes. The entire group met annually to
review progress, discuss results, and define further work.

It was agreed that the first reporting of results would be directly to the

missions representatives. Researchers would also serve as individual
consultants to interpret and apply results pertaining to individual missions.
The CORE group outlined ethical codes and policies for use of the
resulting databases, encouraging other researchers beyond CART/CORE,
and cooperating with other researchers and missions.

MK Research: Notes and Observations

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The Boarding School Personnel Study

The first step of this project defined desirable qualities for boarding

school personnel and involved a survey of 180 persons who had close
acquaintance with boarding schools, namely adult MKs who were former
students, parents of present and former students, teachers, administrators
and house parents. The results showed some clear and useful distinctions
between the school personnel groups (See Powell and Andrews, 1993).

The second step consisted of measuring characteristics of the entire

staffs of twenty overseas boarding schools serving MKs. There was high
degree of participation by the schools involved, and results were shared
with representatives of each mission. School profiles were discussed (with
appropriate maintenance of confidentiality), and consultations regarding
policies, practices, and potential positive changes were held. Results were
distributed within each mission group, and to the larger missions commun-
ity through journals (Wickstrom, 1983; Taylor and Pollock, 1995).

The most important characteristics of school personnel were not

technical skills and competencies, but relational capacities and qualities of
character through which came the ability to influence, model, and teach
important life truths to students. These qualitative characteristics could be
summarized as: 1) the ability to provide a nurturing environment; 2)
unusual patience (e.g., being slow to anger, swift to listen, quick to praise);
and 3) the ability to set clear personal and interpersonal boundaries and
demonstrate balance in their lives.

The Adult MK (AMK) Study

The second major MK-CART/CORE study focused on adult MKs

(AMKs). Previous studies had most often been done with college students
and other young adults. There had been no comprehensive study of AMKs
across ages, location of service, mission groups (small and large;
denominational and nondenominational) with multi-mission participation.
There was particular interest in looking at the spiritual, relational,
vocational, and life satisfaction variables for such a group, and also

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identifying both positive and negative aspects of family, school, mission
culture, and host culture experiences.

The design included both standardized instruments and researcher-

generated items. A pool of more than 12,000 names and addresses of
AMKs was assembled from records of the participating missions, including
MK school alumni lists and other sources. Questionnaires were mailed to a
random sample of 10% ; more than 200 were returned due to incorrect
addresses. Exactly 608 completed questionnaires were received, for a
return rate from "good" addresses of 58%. This was an excellent return
rate for this type of research, but the fact that some 15% of the names were
"lost" from MK schools and missions may have other implications which
are difficult to discern.

Completed questionnaires were anonymous, but respondents were

given the option of volunteering for a semi-structured phone interview by
giving their telephone number. More than 83% did so! Many also added
notes and letters to the lengthy questionnaire, further describing their
experiences as MKs and in later life. Later, a random sample of volunteers
for phone interviews was drawn, and more than 50 individual semi-
structured interviews of approximately one and a half hours each were
conducted.

This project generated a massive amount of data. The initial results

were shared in depth with mission representatives over three of the annual
MK-CART/CORE meetings, as various contexts were drawn for dis-
cussing the results and their meaning. Some findings have been dissemi-
nated through other channels (Andrews, 1994a; Andrews, 1994b; Pauls
and Pauls, 1993; Andrews, 1995; Powell, 1996; Wickstrom, 1998).

Educational and Career Choices

Findings from this study can be summarized in several categories.

The first relates to educational and career choice outcomes. Ninety-four
percent of respondents had attended or were currently attending college or
university. Some were not yet old enough to have completed college and
may have been attending college at the time of the study. Forty-four
percent of AMKs report receiving academic scholarships, 6% athletic
scholarships, and 2% music scholarships. Eleven percent were named to
"Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities," 33% majored in

MK Research: Notes and Observations

457

Bible, theology, Christian education or related Christian service fields in
college, and 4% hold earned doctoral degrees.

Some 73% reported attending boarding school as boarders at some

time and 7% attended boarding schools as non-boarders. The remaining
20% presumably used educational options such as international schools,
national schools, or other arrangements. Of those completing the study,
48% had entered boarding school prior to grade 4 (Andrews, 1994a).

Although findings of previous studies varied regarding the effect of

boarding school, the age of entry, and other factors (e.g., Schipper, 1977;
Wickstrom, 1978; Sharp, 1985), this study found no statistically signifi-
cant differences between boarders and non-boarders on ten present-life sat-
isfaction scales. However, one must be aware of individual differences.

Vocationally, 16% of the AMK sample indicated missionary service,

and 36% (including those in mission service) are in a full-time Christian
vocation. As Useem had found in her earlier research, well over half are in
a vocation which in some way touches on international factors. Of the 10
life satisfaction variables, career satisfaction was fourth from the top.

Life Satisfaction and Related Variables

Present satisfaction with ten "life satisfaction variables" was meas-

ured as a part of this study. Combining the responses of all AMKs
sampled, the ten areas were ranked, number 1 being the most satisfying: 1)
children; 2) family of origin; 3) dating/marriage; 4) career; 5) extended
family; 6) friendships; 7) peer relationships; 8) relationship with parents'
mission agency; 9) church; and, 10) community. While attending or gradu-
ating from college seemed to make little difference in life satisfaction on
most variables, those who never attended college showed significantly
higher satisfaction with their careers than all other AMKs combined.

Women reported greater satisfaction with their families of origin,

friendships, and their parents' mission agencies than did men. Some 55%
of the AMKs indicated that their parents included them in their ministries,
and those who had been included showed significantly higher satisfaction
on all 10 variables than those who had not (Andrews, 1994b). When those
participating in the interviews were asked who had influenced them the

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most when they were growing up, by far the greatest number (38%) said it
was their father (Wickstrom, 1998).

Researchers concluded that the family was the most significant and

influential agent in the development of the MK, in spite of the great impor-
tance of a multitude of other factors. The mission subculture, school
environment, host culture, conveyance of the "home" culture, intrafamily
dynamics, and the normal bumps and bruises of growing up, affect MK
development, but the family appears to outweigh all others in its influence.

Unusual Stress, Abuse and Trauma in MKs

The AMK study provided empirical evidence for the existence of

emotional, physical, and sexual abuse from within the family, within the
mission, by school personnel, and from nationals. There had been expo-
sure to natural disasters, physical deprivation, terror, robbery, assault, rape,
the witnessing of violence toward others, and other events which may have
had lasting effects upon the victims. The frequency of personal stress,
abuse, and trauma perpetrated by those with whom the MK had some
relationship was at a level lower than experienced by the general North
American population.

The study also revealed other types of stress, abuse, and trauma such

as lack of deserved empathy and compassion by significant caregivers,
harsh punishment, lack of respect, sustained exposure to unhealthy rigidity,
emotional abandonment by a parent or parents, and other behaviors
resulting in trauma from which some are still recovering. Some AMKs
indicated that the response by mission representatives, from others within
the mission, and interaction with the mission subculture itself sometimes
complicated or even added to the trauma.

Data from the study provided useful information on the type and

frequency of such occurrences, but written comments and phone interviews
gave a more poignant picture of human suffering from these untoward
events. The interviewers were impressed by the candor, honesty, and
resilience shown by nearly all of those who had experienced such events.
In a few instances there was a feeling of alienation or abandonment by
God, anger at the mission and/or the parents and family, and bitterness

MK Research: Notes and Observations

459

toward the church. There may be a larger number of AMKs so affected,
but who did not participate in the research.

While these events are not normative to the MK experience, there

was sufficient indication to be of concern. Time was spent with mission
representatives, discussing the data and implications. Many MKs said it
had required effort to understand their MK experience and how it has
affected them. The great majority were positive about this "working
through" experience, and it is a growth process which occurs for most
individuals, whether MKs or not.

Researchers in CART/CORE believe that their findings promote

positive steps in reducing severe stress and abuse. Steps are being taken to
provide more effective assistance and reduce the effects of trauma which
occurs within the host culture, natural disasters, accidents and other
"external" events.

The Missionary Family Study

As a third major study, MK-CART/CORE is pursuing a number of

questions related to missionary families. Data have been collected from 10
cooperating missions. Those being studied are missionary families,
including any children 15 and older making their primary home with the
family. Initial results should available in late 1998.

Concluding Observations

This chapter has given a brief overview of significant developments,

not a comprehensive review of MK research literature. Other important
references were not covered.

Research which will help in understanding MKs and their families and

can be applied to mission policies and practices continues to present a
challenge. More detailed knowledge is needed about relationships, family
dynamics, and a host of other variables. Findings from such research have
the potential to enhance development, help prevent untoward events, and
guide intervention and resolution. Further research may contribute to the
current member-care movement in missions.

Overall, our best understanding from research is that MKs have a

number of characteristics, rich in quality and representative of varied

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individual differences, which are distinct from many of those in their
monocultural peer group. Yet, they also have much in common with these
peers. Part of the research task is to further distinguish those which are
uniquely associated with the MK experience and those which fit on the
pathways of development for most people.

So far, research indicates that the majority of MKs have made faith in

Christ their own, and are nurturing and personally integrating it. Most
seem to recognize this as a life-long process and a significant number
(36%) express it in Christian vocations. Some have rejected it, and still
others struggle with aspects of it.

Many research questions remain to be formulated and answered, but

progress in MK research over the last decade and a half offers much to
build upon.

References

Andrews, L.A. (1989) Bibliography of Research on the Missionary Family. MK-

CART/CORE, Nyack, NY.

Andrews, L.A. (1994a) Life Satisfaction of Adult Missionary Kids. MK-

CART/CORE Research Briefing #1, Wilmore, KY.

Andrews, L.A. (1994b) Educational Experiences of Adult Missionary Kids. MK-

CART/CORE Research Briefing No. 2, Wilmore, KY.

Andrews, L.A. (1995) "Measurement of Adult MKs Well Being." Evangelical

Missions Quarterly

, October 1995.

Austin, C.N. (1983) Cross Cultural Re-Entry: An Annotated Bibliography. ACU

Press, Abilene, TX.

Austin, C.N., and Gordon, D. E. (1986) References on Re-Entry. Unpublished

addendum on re-entry. Abilene Christian University, Abilene, TX.

Danielson, E. E. (1981) The Effects of Foreign Residence in Personality

Development of the Children of American Evangelical Ministers.

Unpub-

lished dissertation, Univ. of Santo Thomas, Manila, Philippines.

Dillon, D. E. (1983) Missionary Personality Characteristics of Evangelical

Missionaries as Measured by the MMPI.

Dissertation, N. Illinois Univ.

Herrmann, C. B. (1977) Foundational Factors of Trust and Autonomy

Influencing the Identity Formation of the Multi-cultural Life Styled MK.
Dissertation Abstracts Int'l, 38, 5373A. (Univ. Microfilms 78-00, 710).

Hunter, W.F. (1993) "MKs and Missionary Families." Journal of Psychology and

Theology

19, No. 1, 1-21.

MK Research: Notes and Observations

461

Myers, B. (1997) "Research? What For?" MARC Newsletter, No. 97-3, Sept.
Pauls, N. and Pauls, D. (1993) "CART/CORE: Research on MKs" Parents

Teaching Overseas,

November. Dallas, TX: Wycliffe.

Powell, J.R. and Andrews, L.A. "Qualities Desired in MK Boarding School

Personnel." Journal of Psychology and Theology, 21, No. 1 8692.

Reapsome, J. (1998) "Research and the Ginger Ale Syndrome." Evangelical

Missions Quarterly

, 34, No. 1, 67.

Schipper, D. J. (1977) Self-concept Differences Between Early, Late, and Non-

Boarding Missionary Children.

Unpublished dissertation, Rosemead

Graduate School of Professional Psychology, La Mirada, CA.

Sharp, L. W. (1985) "Toward Greater Understanding of the Real MK." Journal of

Psychology and Christianity

, Vol. 4, No. 1, 7378.

Taylor, G. and Pollock, D. C. (1995) "Boarding School Staff: How to Get the

Best." Evangelical Missions Quarterly. January 1995.

Useem, R. (1980) Personal communication. Mich.State Univ., E. Lansing, MI.
Walters, D. L. (1996, Second Ed.) Missionary Children: Caught Between

Cultures.

Doris L. Walters, USA.

Ward, T. (1989) "The Anxious Climate of Concern for Missionary Children."

International Bulletin of Missionary Research

, 13, 1, 1113.

Werkman, S. L. (1972) "Hazards of Rearing Children in Foreign Countries."

American Journal of Psychiatry

, 128, 992997

White, F. J. (1983) "Some Reflections on the Separation Phenomenon..." Journal

of Psychology and Theology

11, 181188.

Wickstrom, D. L. (1978) Self-esteem and Dependence in Early, Late, and Non-

Boarding Missionary Children.

Unpublished dissertation, Rosemead

Graduate School of Professional Psychology, La Mirada, CA.

Wickstrom, D.L. and Fleck, J.R. (1983) "Correlates of Self-esteem and

Dependency." Journal of Psychology and Theology, 2, 4, 1824.

Wickstrom, D. L. (1998) "What MKs Say About Their Fathers." Presentation at

Conf. on the Missionary Family, Columbia Int'l. Univ., January 1998.

462

52.

Doing Research Together

Ted Ward

My professional career has centered on research and the development

of international leaders who use their research skills to deal with long-range
planning. During thirty years at MSU I have been assigned to projects in
over sixty countries. In every case, my professional service and Christian
ministry have gone hand-in-hand.

I'm not a quantitative researcher; I'm more of an anthropologist than

a statistician. I am more dedicated to good descriptive research--the
school of social science which says that before you can do good research
you have to have good hypotheses, based on descriptive work, which may
be based on anecdotal reporting. All of us can contribute to this
accumulation of knowledge, no matter what our expertise. I have encour-
aged people of all sorts to contribute by doing careful case studies. Almost
anyone can learn to describe somewhat objectively what is going on in their
immediate experience.

We need a passion for the problem, rather than a passionate commit-

ment to a given solution. Sometimes we are so anxious to get to a solution
that we don't take time to get thoroughly involved in the problem.
Sometimes a particular answer is promoted before anyone really knows
what the question is. Most of us have a tendency to oversimplify things
and give stereotyped answers to complex problems.

Naming things well is important to research. Changing what

something is called doesn't change its nature: for example, "third world"
vs. "two-thirds world." But it may change our perception of it; and naming
is usually the best place to start improving our understanding. One of the
first things God did with Adam was put him to work as a researcher.
Adam didn't have much to go on--there wasn't a lot of previous data, and
Adam couldn't go to a library. But God gave him an assignment of taxon-
omy:

naming the animals. Almost anyone can start with that. Name your

universe. See what is there and call it something. Doing that well is an
important task.

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Our task of research is huge, and needs to engage many people.

Research should not be presented as a highly technical enterprise which
intends to exclude most people. My hope is that we may become as
communicative as possible to anyone who is willing to listen and think.
Thinking is one thing I always demand of people; it may not always be
comfortable, but it is good because it exalts the Lord who made us. I take
a creational and redemptive approach to research. Part of our task is to
start with what we find in God's creation and appropriate it in a redemptive
way, so that the mercy and grace of God can flow more effectively toward
and through it.

I am not convinced that evaluative research is very helpful. Evalu-

ative studies tend to be very short-sighted and simply inform executive
decisions within a given moment. They usually have relatively little
generalizable value. Many managers actually are thinking about evalu-
ation

when they talk about "research." They want you to evaluate some-

thing as a researcher, especially if your study can demonstrate what they
already believe, and you promise not to release it unless it does!

Biases About Research

Some biases: If we are to do international collaboration, we first need

to understand our own biases about research. In approaching other
cultures, we must remember that different countries have very different
approaches to what research is or should be, and the biases usually reflect
particular cultural postures. We North Americans bring a rational, rea-
soned approach, and people from many other cultures bring a more histor-
ical, emotive, systemic approach, which could almost be seen as lore.

There are certain kinds of research which are a lot more worthy of our

attention than others. I want to name some kinds of research which make
sense within scope and function of the concern we have for the missionary
family, the missionary kid, and the missionary social system.

All the types of research I will list have both purposive and methodo-

logical implications, but this is not a taxonomy of methods. I am simply
naming some of the kinds of research that help us understand the world we
are dealing with at this conference.

Types of Research

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1.

Problem-centered diagnostic studies.

They describe a contem-

porary problem and elaborate on it, and don't add a lot. If done well, a by-
product is that the researcher develops better inquiry techniques which are
then available to others and may spawn a generation of inquiries which
have some comparability. This process builds perspective.

2.

Facilitational or strategy-centered studies.

These are what

institutions will settle for, if what they think they need is evaluative studies.
Facilitational studies tell what works and doesn't work; e.g., the church
growth research looks at what is going on to see if it has certain kinds of
impacts or consequences.

3.

Family systems studies.

We need good comparative and corre-

lational studies in family systems. Some very interesting international
studies could be done. Some of the best international comparative work
has been done on national school systems, particularly in the western
nations; e.g., schools in Sweden compared to schools in the U.S. Vast
human resources are invested in the study of intercultural matters, but
somehow in the missions enterprise we seem to be satisfied with just
muddling through without really examining what is going on.

4.

Organizational development factors studies.

One example

would be a study of the missionary family and the organizational devel-
opment circumstances within which the family functions.

5.

Social system analysis.

This is closely related to the previous

type; e.g., looking at the family as system, and studying systems within
systems, and how they impact one another. These studies would try to
track things from one level of a system to another level. One of my
passionate concerns is how mission policy affects mission systems, which
affect both schools and families. In turn, they affect not only the effective-
ness but sometimes even the health and morale of missionaries and their
children.

6.

Longitudinal studies.

This is one of my favorites. In social

science, some of the most important breakthroughs have been made in
longitudinal, developmental studies. They are rarely done as doctoral
dissertations or master's theses because they take too long. These can be
done particularly well by groups of professionals who deal with common
issues and problems and who want to make a contribution.

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465

Longitudinal studies follow events as they unfold over time. By

contrast, most low-cost research involves cross-sectional or "slice of time"
studies, such as comparing seniors to freshmen and assuming that this will
show what happens to students while they are in school. The results are
not often valid because the seniors are different people than the freshmen;
you commit all sorts of logical and structural errors in the design.
Unfortunately, this describes a lot of master's theses. Sincere, hard-
working people commit even more gross structural errors and put them to
high mathematical test, and the results are called doctoral dissertations!
However, we must be thankful that even if not always sound, research does
get done by graduate students.

7.

Instrument development.

This type of research is a by-product

of any or all of the above. We should try for instrument development by-
products whenever possible, because they facilitate replication and
collaboration. Instruments help us share inquiries across cultural lines.

One category I have not included is surveys. I don't have a lot of

patience with surveys. Someone talked about whether we might wear
people out if we do too much research. Anemic master's level survey
studies have everyone worn out! We need to get beyond that level and get
on to more intensive work. There is much more value in close-up ethno-
graphic work and interview studies that are really careful and thorough.

Survey research can't be done well unless the important variables are

already rather well documented. You identify the variables through evi-
dence from other descriptive research. We should not despise the study
that only looks at twelve cases, or only one school, or at one family over a
period of time. Much more will be seen there than in broad surveys which
ask questions that don't make a lot of sense, but are then subjected to
elaborate number-crunching in elegant computers.

Goals of International Collaboration

What do we mean by international collaboration? There are several

specific goals we should think of in terms of international collaboration.

Complementing one another, not duplicating.

There is a great deal

of difference in how we look at things. In working with Europeans, you
have to respect their approach and methodology, then find ways to

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complement their studies. The difference in how we do research is partly
cultural, but probably more specifically in the nature of our training. There
are many different research traditions in which people are trained, and
some of them are quite narrow, with their own unique definitions of the
word "research." If the same situation is studied from several different
perspectives, the result is a more textured or three-dimensional view, while
allowing for differences of approach to the same problem. But in order to
do that, we have to back off from the proprietary stance which is
characteristic of some of our studies.

Replicating for comparative purposes.

This means doing it over

again, either in the same context to see how it holds up (How reliable is it?
Is it observed the same way twice?) or replicating it in another situation
for comparison. Replication is the fountainhead of good comparative
studies. It is always a good idea to design a study in such a way that it
could be replicated. Discipline yourself to stay away from peculiar things
that exist in a particular environment and don't exist anywhere else. A lot
of participant-observer studies can't be replicated because another re-
searcher can't enter a different environment in the same way.

Reciprocation vs. exploitation.

Exploitation is what we do when we

manipulate other people into collecting our data. A lot of people think of
international collaboration in research in those sorts of terms: I'll get
people from various places to collect data, and then it will be an
international study. There is a huge difference between simply getting
others to help carry out a study and finding people who can relate as peers
in a project and thus building true research reciprocity.

Problems of International Collaboration

Putting a high value on doing research together with people of other

cultures or nationalities is not without serious challenges. I will mention
some I have encountered.

Differences in Priorities

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Whenever there is international or intercultural collaboration (e.g., an

American working with an Australian) there will be differences in priorities
such as the following:

Topical dissonances.

We have different ways of defining things. We

differ in how we name something or what we think it is. The concepts
"personality," or "motivation" just do not transfer into some cultures.
They don't think in that way. The notion of "truth" or "integrity" doesn't
go across all cultural lines. For example, I have dealt with several students
from a culture where quoting someone without giving credit to the source is
seen as the highest compliment. To give citations would be a lesser honor.
In the U.S. we call that plagiarism. In general in Arabic cultures, you give
honor to people by using their words, and you defame them if you use a
citation, because that suggests the whole world doesn't already know it has
been said by a certain worthy person.

Notions of sequence.

Americans like to say, "We have a very

logical approach: let's get to the bottom of this and then work our way
back up." We tend not to look thoroughly at the presenting symptom; we
want to go to its origin and then come back at it. Many people in the world
start in a different place in that sequence. Sometimes you are amazed to
see a researcher from another culture doing something that you believe is
wrong. But the other person is looking at your work saying the same thing!
It takes a certain amount of broad-mindedness to truly collaborate,
because you will each do things that are stupid in the eyes of the other.
This is difficult for both.

The importance of specific studies.

What is most important to get

at? Americans have very different ideas about what the important varia-
bles are. People from other cultures may have their own sense of priorities.
When people of other cultures tell us what they think the important
variables are, we can get some good insights.

Epistemological Differences

Narrative representation.

Americans tend not to think in terms of

narrative representation. A high percentage of other cultures do think in
terms of narrative representation as a valid way to describe. We tend to
think that unless you have numbers, tables, and percentages, you haven't

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done a good job of research. Many people will reject that and go back to
narrative or descriptive styles, where the value of the story to be told is the
central thing.

The work of Oscar Lewis is exemplary of a Latin American ethnog-

rapher: he simply tells the story. His work reads like novels. There is
almost the excitement of fiction when you read what he writes, because it is
so "alive." Commitment to evidence from the family system in the family
context is important, but the story must be told so that the rank-and-file
person can read it, enjoy it, grasp it, and be edified by it. As researchers,
we dare not become so arcane and remote that we can only talk with each
other.

Cause-and-effect diagnostic paradigms.

Westerners generally think

in terms of cause and effect. The vast majority of this world thinks in
terms of the Islamic phrase, "Allah wills it." This presupposition is not a
cause/effect statement; don't assume that Allah is cause and what
happened is effect. It is a different kind of epistemology which says not to
worry yourself with why. Allah wills it; you need not be concerned. God
takes care of his business; we take care of our business.

In Western culture, we always assume there is an identifiable cause

somewhere and we just need to find it. That fetish will drive us in opposite
directions from many potential international collaborators.

Meaning of intellectual curiosity.

Intellectual curiosity drives a lot

of us, including many who are not researchers. For Westerners, research is
a healthy manifestation of intellectual curiosity. However, in many cultures
intellectual curiosity is not the driving force. They use their minds for
things that make more sense in their context. Inquiry has a different
purpose for many people. Even rationality has a different shape for
various people.

Organizational Motives

Motives for doing research.

Here I'm talking about motivations of

the sponsors of research, not structural differences in organizations. For
example, very few intercultural Christian organizations understand
research as having an academic value or contributing to literature. Third-
world organizations don't tend to think that way at all. Internal

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469

enlightenment is usually more important--"We will be better people if we
know." That is not radically different from the Western notion that we are
able to use knowledge, but we Americans take a particularly pragmatic
view. We have a control-oriented view of research; knowledge gives us
power and control.

I try to teach my Christian researchers that there is a worshipful qual-

ity in knowledge and learning. Aspects of the image of God are expressed
as human beings utilize all the attributes that God has created-- including
intellect, understanding, and the capacity to know. I try to steer people
away from a pragmatic need to know in order to change things, control
things, or do things differently. Indeed, change may be an outcome, but if
it is made to be the primary goal, it becomes a god and will be seen as such
by people of other cultures.

Orientation to problem-solving.

Western people and people edu-

cated in the West presume that problem-solving is one of the divine
prerogatives of humankind. I happen to think problem-solving is a great
thing, but there are a lot of people in this world who don't. Problems are
not there to be solved; they are to be dealt with because they build
character--"tribulation works patience." In the biblical statement,
tribulation isn't a problem to be solved; it is something to be appreciated
because it develops patience. Orientation to problem-solving is very
different across cultures.

You may think all of these matters are abstract and impractical, that

they won't make any difference in what you are doing. But if you try to
practice international collaboration in research, these differences can rise
up and bite you in the nose!

The style of research itself.

There is a continuum between planned

research and emergent research. I try to teach my students to plan research
with as much vigor as they carry it out, because I am very Western and
very American. Our approach is to anticipate and resolve a lot of problems
so they won't cause trouble later on. That is quite atypical of research
around the world. In other cultures, the plan is very brief and is a starting
place for a sort of heuristic exercise--we will study some things, and they
will lead us to other things, and ultimately we will become internally
enlightened. Marvelous idea! Drives me nuts! I tend to be very planned,

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not emergent, but if you get into international collaboration, that will
become an issue, and you will need to do some give and take.

These differences are not obstacles to be overcome; they add a great

deal to the richness and enlightenment of research, but it requires patience
and respect in order to receive the benefits of international collaboration.

Potential Solutions

Learn how to learn each other's techniques.

If you can't beat 'em,

join 'em. Get on the same wave length; learn to do it their way so you get
pretty good at it, and people will accept and respect you more.

Learn to complement one another's work.

Work with someone

from your own culture to practice those skills. You look at it this way; I'll
look at it that way. You look at these subjects; I'll look at those. Then
we'll look at each other's results and see what we can put together. This is
peer teamwork.

What Is the Future for Intercultural Collaboration?

First, we will experience some side-by-side discoveries that could be

a lot of fun. What we are talking about is not at all frightening, though it
may be uncomfortable from time to time.

Second, we will produce some by-products of the experiences them-

selves, such as comparable case literature. How we need good case
literature, both for training and for the research value! For many years, I
have been challenging Christian organizations to put some of their people
to work writing up what they are doing. There is no other sector of society
that spends so much money and commands the resources of so many
people as the missionary movement, but which has so little case docu-
mentation to show for it. People say, "But that doesn't win souls." Now,
wait a minute--it can make us more aware, more insightful, more able to
cope. It could in the long run be one of the reasons we're not winning more
souls.

I am not talking about a single-logic research. For example, the

church growth philosophy is a kind of single-track research paradigm

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471

which has a very limited value in the long run. We need more creative
approaches.

There is the possibility of doing intercultural analyses, so we could

have a better feel for what it is that makes certain situations different from
others. Missionaries are quick to say this place is different from that place,
and these people are different from those people, but not very often do we
find good material about what makes them different and what is underneath
the presenting symptoms of their differences.

I always hear, "These people are not interested in so-and-so; you can't

give them this; they won't take that." I wonder what's underneath that, and
how deep it is. There may be a very shallow structure and the behavior
would be easy to change -- they don't eat ice cream because they have
never seen it before. If they aren't interested in Jesus Christ, how deep is
the structure underneath that? Sometimes we don't know that, and we plod
up the wrong hill. We need good comparable case literature and
intercultural analyses.

We need to know what phenomenologies are cross-cultural. I am

using the term cross-cultural in the sense of things that are true across
cultures. Intercultural has to do with when cultures come together. We
have intercultural differences and cross-cultural similarities. Think of
"inter" as interact--and sometimes interfere!--those are intercultural
issues. Cross-cultural matters are such things as the fact that all societies
have family structures. The concept of the nuclear family is an inter-
cultural problem in a society of extended families.

Things that are different on the surface may nevertheless be indicative

of phenomenologies that are common. Everyone the world over is
concerned about dressing in such a way as to accommodate the weather.
Some people don't wear much clothing because it's a lot more comfortable
not to. But compare that to the Eskimo; weather makes the difference.

We all have domiciles; we all have families; there are a lot of things

that are structurally common across cultures. We need to see the cross-
cultural aspects of human experience so that we can know what bridges are
needed. In any kind of missiological work bridges are crucial.

The best example in Scripture is when Paul came to Athens and was

aghast at the idolatry. Nonetheless, he forced himself to spend time

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studying the idols. In doing so, he discovered the little plaque, "To the
unknown god" and that became his bridge. God gave Paul a bridge in the
cross-culturalness of religion. The differences between monotheism and
polytheistic idolatry are an intercultural problem. But Paul didn't get hung
up on that; he used cross-culturalness as a witness to the transcendent
God. That kind of thinking is something we need to build more strongly
into our tradition, whether we are talking about MKs or other mission
issues.

There are some transcultural incentives and motives, not only for

research but for specifics like families. We need to know what the trans-
cultural incentives are. What is it to be a Christian? By transcultural I
mean some stance that is inherently above culture. I think there is a culture
above culture. The rudiments of the Kingdom of God are a map of a
culture that is above culture. I can have one foot in the American culture,
but I need to have the other foot in the transculturalness of being Christian.
What are transcultural incentives we have for our phenomenology, and
ultimately what are the transcultural values? That can come out of
collaborative research; it will never come out of monocultural research.

A Few Nagging Issues

There are some things we may need to deal with before we mount any

significant international research studies.

First, you have to come to grips with fundamental value differences.

For example, "family" is cross-cultural, but what we value in families
from one culture to another can be wildly different. For Americans, family
is relatively less important--even though our presidents keep telling us
otherwise. Americans, along with Australians, are probably at the bottom
of the heap when it comes to family values. Most of the rest of the world
has a keener appreciation for family values. Another example is the spirit
world. Most of the rest of the world has a keener appreciation for the spirit
world. Only among Americans and some Western Europeans do you have
to argue for the possibility that there is a God.

In matters like this, we first have to know where we are. Not many of

us are really sensitive to our values and how they are defined. We have a
lot of homework to do in that area.

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473

There are also significant conceptual differences. For example, our

concept of what is worth resolving or answering, and how do we identify an
answerable question? We need to get better acquainted with ourselves in
that matter.

We also need to better understand our own curiosity. To what extent

is our curiosity exploitative?

Being willing to be self-critical; to see one's own culture as noble and

worthy (though peculiar, unique, and not at all the ideal for the world)--
these are the foundations for effective international collaboration in
research.

Based on a presentation at ICMK Nairobi, November 1989.

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53.

Development of Regional Networks

David K. Wilcox

The Post-ICMK Conferences: Promoting MK Ministry
Through Networking, Professional Development, and Inspiration

At the conclusion of ICMK Nairobi, delegates felt that they were part

of a worldwide ministry. They expressed a desire to stay in contact with
colleagues of common vision and purpose. But commitment to the
conference resolutions and a new sense of community and collaborative
purpose did not mean that a fourth ICMK should be planned. A better way
to carry out the purposes of the three ICMKs would be through regional
conferences and activities.

Perhaps the greatest factor pointing to a change in direction was that

the ICMK conferences had achieved their objective of sensitizing the
missions community to issues of member care and nurture. For the next
steps, regional conferences would allow for greater interaction and more
region-specific solutions. Regional conferences would allow more
participants to be involved. This article will provide an overview of the
regional conferences and other developments since ICMK Nairobi. We
will see how these efforts have contributed to MK ministries and well-
being, and make suggestions for future conference planning.

Development of Regional Conferences

In each region of the world, the implementation of ICMK resolutions

and the development of improved responses to MK needs has been shared
by several types of groups: MK schools, mission agencies, and other
supporting organizations. MK schools have taken the lead in an ongoing
response to the needs of MKs. With budgets which allowed for staff
development activities and a vested interest staying up to date on trends in
MK ministry, these schools have encouraged their staff to participate in the
conferences.

ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International), and more

specifically ACSI's International Ministries Office, is an association
devoted to the Great Commission through education and discipleship in the

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Christian school context, and to professional development of Christian
educators. ACSI's International Ministries Office promoted the formation
of the MKOA (Missionary Kids of the Americas) and the MKEA
(Missionary Kids of Europe and Africa) regional conferences and has
served as the facilitator of recent MCOS (Missionary/ Christian Overseas
Schools in Asia) conferences as well.

East Asia and the Pacific Islands

The East Asia/Pacific Islands region has been blessed for over twenty

years with a strong, informal network of MK school administrators and
mission representatives. This group of administrators was central to the
organization of the 1984 ICMK in Manila. Schools in Asia have valued
collaborative efforts and have seen their individual efforts as contributing
to the broader mission community's best interests. The fellowship called
itself MKOS (Missionary Kids Overseas Schools) until 1994, when it
changed its name to MCOS (Missionary/Christian Overseas Schools).

MCOS is an informal fellowship of persons involved in TCK ministry

in Asia. Each participating school has a vote in determining the activities
of the fellowship which, at the time of this writing, include the planning for
each year's administrator conference and any additional conferences
deemed beneficial to the participating schools. Through 1996, this
fellowship consisted almost exclusively of Western participants. In 1997,
personnel from Asian international schools participated as well, marking
an exciting redefinition of networking and collaboration.

The expansion of participation developed in stages. As missionaries

are being sent from more nations and in greater numbers, the MK and
MK-educator population has grown. Also, as schools recognized the
validity of the redefinition of some MK issues as TCK issues, the agendas
of MCOS gatherings were attractive to a wider range of schools. Thus,
when the leaders of Buah Hati, a Christian international school in Indo-
nesia serving a predominately Asian expatriate community, heard that the
topic for MCOS '97 was improving instructional supervision in the
international Christian school, they wanted to attend. What was even more
exciting was that their participation was warmly received. The common
vision of the schools participating in MCOS events is a desire to explore

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expatriate educational and nurturing issues from a Christian perspective, as
well as to develop relationships with colleagues in common ministry.

MCOS meets annually, usually at the MK/international Christian

school closest to the EARCOS (East Asia Regional Council of Overseas
Schools) annual meeting. It has varied from a one-day gathering of
administrators and curriculum coordinators for informal sharing and
prayer, to hosting large conferences for MK educators and boarding home
personnel. In 1990 MKOS met at Dalat School in Penang, Malaysia, with
about 30 in attendance. The meetings were largely devotional and job-alike
sessions.

The 1991 MKOS conference was held at Morrison Academy in

Taichung, Taiwan. Since the host was a large school with an active interest
in improving ESL instruction, the invitation was opened to anyone who
was interested, not just MK administrators. Over ninety people
participated, including many from the host school.

The MKOS conference that year concentrated on ways to serve a more

multinational missions community and how to do so from a distinctively
Christian perspective. The topics included developing culturally sensitive
curriculum, improving ESL instruction, and improving boarding services.

In 1992 Dalat School again sponsored MKOS, but this time the

conference was in Bangkok, Thailand. In 1993 MKOS was hosted by the
Network of International Schools in Singapore, with over fifty attending. In
January 1994, ACSI and Faith Academy co-hosted a conference for the
professional development of boarding home parents serving in MK schools
throughout the region. That conference was followed by MCOS
conferences in Bali (November 1994), Beijing (November 1995), the large
MCOS conference at Faith Academy (December 29, 1996 January 1,
1997), and at Dalat School in November, 1997.

MCOS '97 was unique in that the program was designed to qualify

for graduate credit through Simpson College of Redding, California.
Participants received either one or two graduate hours of credit, depending
on the amount of extra reading and projects they did. Tentative plans are
underway for the next major MCOS conference to be held at Morrison
Academy in early January, 2000.

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477

The MCOS conferences have promoted MK ministry in several ways.

First they have addressed the implications of a multinational missions
community. The conference topics have reflected the schools' desires to
improve ESL programs, internationalize the curriculum (or at least make it
more culturally sensitive), and learn how to serve students from differing
national backgrounds. Second, the conferences have spread the word about
the success of innovative programs such as Ukarumpa (Papua New
Guinea) International School's Mother Tongue Studies program developed
by Toshio Nagai and others. Third, the improved communication among
teachers of similar subjects and among boarding home parents working
throughout the region has promoted school-to-school contacts. Finally,
those involved in MK education have been challenged as they hear of MK
schools with different admission policies, models for curriculum, models of
boarding care, and views about the role of the missionary and Christian
schools in the Asian context.

Latin America

The ICMK Quito conference in January 1987 marked the beginning of

significant networking in that region. However, it was not until several
years later that the MK school administrators in the region planned further
activities and conferences. In 1992, the ACSI Missions Office, under the
leadership of Dr. Philip Renicks and his assistant, Richard Edlin, initiated
the MKOA International Steering Committee for conference planning. The
result was MKOA '93 in Quito, and was jointly sponsored by the Alliance
Academy and ACSI.

The MKOA conference steering committee, a self-perpetuating

committee consisting of one representative from each of the four sub-
regions of Latin America and the Caribbean, a mission representative, plus
an ACSI representative, seeks to organize conferences once every three
years. The sites of the conferences will be rotated throughout the region.
Hence, MKOA 1993 was in Quito, Ecuador; MKOA 1996 was in
Guatemala, and MKOA 1999 will be in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

MKOA 1993 served as a wonderful meeting place for MK educators

and caregivers who had never before met with colleagues in other schools
in the region. Interaction between missionaries with similar ministries was

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the highlight of the conference. But beyond the networking, several other
important decisions were made. First was the decision for the MKOA
administrators to meet yearly in conjunction with an ACSI teachers
convention. The administrators agreed to use that venue to recruit teachers
at a job fair immediately following the conference, and to meet for
fellowship and professional growth. The ACSI MK school recruiting fairs
have continued since then, with participation by MK school administrators
from around the world as well as home office mission personnel recruiters.

The second development from MKOA '93 was the establishment of

the MK Educators' Consultation. The consultation provides a forum where
home office mission staff with responsibility for MK education can meet to
discuss each one's common interests. Another goal is to encourage
missions to share initiatives they have developed in MK education in order
to improve services to MKs in other missions as well¹. Since 1994, the MK
Educators Consultation has divided into two meetings. One is the MK
Caregivers Consultation and the other is the Intermission MK Education
Consultation. These separate meetings focus on distinct aspects of MK
ministry.

MKOA 1996 in Guatemala emphasized the importance of developing

MK educational programs which are foundationally Christian, and
boarding care which is grounded in a clear understanding of the develop-
mental needs of TCKs. The MK educators heard how different schools
integrated their faith with their educational programs and ministries. Dr.
Harro van Brummelen of Trinity Western University and Dr. Jack Layman
of Columbia International University provided the professional expertise to
help MK educators see the importance of building a biblical framework for
our ministries. Dr. John R. Powell and Rev. David C. Pollock introduced
many participants to the issues of TCKs and to MK-CART/CORE
research.

The 1999 MKOA conference in Bolivia will examine how educators

and caregivers can respond to the unique needs of students by under-
standing their backgrounds and learning styles. Many of the same trends
seen in the MCOS region can be seen in the MKOA region as well. The
MKs who make up our missions communities are increasingly diverse in
background, and their families have ever-increasing expectations about the
quality of education and care. The MKOA conferences have been

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479

successful (in spite of high travel costs for participants) because they
enable MK educators and caregivers to find out what others are doing. In
both Asia and Latin America, the distance between schools means that
inter-MK school student activities are rarely possible, and networking
remains at the professional level only.

Europe and Africa

This vast region of the world includes all of Africa and Europe, as

well as the growing expatriate Christian communities serving in the Com-
monwealth of Independent States. With schools spanning the distance
from Portugal to the CIS and from Norway to South Africa, generalizations
about the effectiveness of events since ICMK Nairobi are difficult to make.
But there is much to rejoice about, and certainly much to be accomplished.

ACSI invited MK school administrators from Africa and Europe to

plan the first MKEA conference in 1995. Black Forest Academy agreed to
host the conference. BFA has consistently supported international
Christian education and MK ministries throughout the region. Speakers
included Richard J. Edlin of ACSI and SIM, Dr. George Durance of BFA,
Dr. Jay Kesler of Taylor University, and Dr. Jim Plueddmann, General
Director of SIM International. MK educators and caregivers chose from
over forty workshops on topics including school accreditation, the advan-
tages of off-campus boarding programs, TCK transition issues (led by
David C. Pollock), and how to teach reading more effectively. The confer-
ence included teachers (165), boarding home parents (41), school admin-
istrators (57), mission representatives (33), and counselors (30). Of the
294 participants, 167 served in Europe and 88 served in Africa.

Since MKEA '95 there has been a flurry of activity and initiatives in

support of ministry to MKs. In Africa, the International Christian Acad-
emy of Côte d'Ivoire hosted a conference led by Dr. John R. Powell for all
MK schools in West Africa, with over 90 attending. The conference
addressed MK and family issues in order to promote healthy families in
ministry. In 1997, MK school administrators in East Africa met at Rift
Valley Academy.

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In Europe, mission leaders have been sensitized to the importance of

MK and member-care issues. Expatriate Christian workers have increas-
ingly moved eastward. That trend, plus the numerical growth in mission-
aries throughout the region, has heightened the profile of MK ministry
issues. Another new initiative on behalf of MK ministry is SHARE
(Sharing, Helps and Alternative Resources in Education). This new
ministry supports and equips families who are using nontraditional
educational alternatives for their children, or who need guidance while in
national schools. SHARE also helps clusters of families begin new
schools. SHARE's ministry to families has proven vital for several
reasons: 1) expatriate Christian workers often live in areas without
traditional MK options; 2) national Christian schools are a more acceptable
option than in many other locations of the world, and 3) there is increased
viability of new educational delivery systems for families.

Another initiative in the MKEA region was the first ACSI

Administrators Conference, which was held at the Foreign Missions Club
in London in April 1997. The 16 MK schools which participated ex-
pressed the desire for administrators' conferences to meet each year the
major regional conference did. At that administrators conference the MK
and international Christian schools of Europe asked ACSI to establish a
regional office in Europe with a full-time director. This office opens in late
1998, to support international Christian schools by sponsoring
conferences, professional development activities, and networking in such
areas as inter-school student activities and a regional newsletter.

MKEA' 98, also at Black Forest Academy in Germany, served those

ministering in MK education and caregiving in several ways. The confer-
ence was a time of spiritual refreshment through the preaching of Dr.
Joseph Stowell, president of Moody Bible Institute. It also provided work-
shops which were specifically designed to improve the ministries of people
involved in MK education and care. Third, the conference challenged
educators were to address the resolutions passed at ICMK Nairobi. Philip
Billing, Director of the Murree Christian School, presented his school's
attempt to serve the multinational missions community more effectively.

The impact of post-ICMK conferences and other initiatives in the

MKEA region have been dramatic, supporting networking, sharing,
professional growth, and the re-establishment of vision. Schools have

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481

expressed a desire for more interaction and exchanges. Mission agencies
have supported their personnel's involvement in the conferences,
recognizing the importance of joint efforts in support of families serving in
the region.

Why Have Regional Conferences Flourished?

Dr. David Greenhalgh of Eastern College called the resolutions

passed at the Nairobi ICMK conference a positive structure for action
planning by MK schools and missions.² Post-ICMK conferences have
facilitated the achievement of the resolutions, and are themselves one of the
outcomes recommended in resolutions VIII and XII. They have served as a
way to monitor progress in meeting the goals of the resolutions.

The post-ICMK conferences have also served the missions commun-

ity by rekindling the vision of the original ICMK organizers and by intro-
ducing new MK educators and caregivers to the values and goals of those
who came before them. At each regional conference a majority of delegates
were attending their first regional conference, reflecting the significant
personnel turnover experienced by the schools and sending agencies.

Regional conferences have also provided professional development

opportunities for their MK educators and caregivers. For long-term MK
educators and boarding home parents, the regional conferences have helped
provide a link with professional networks in their home countries, and have
thereby promoted continuance in overseas service. The conferences are
one of the few sources of professional development for people currently
overseas.

Each event has served as a vehicle to introduce a new group of MK

educators and caregivers to the progress made to date in improving care for
our missionaries' children. That has meant revisiting "old" material so
that people share a common vocabulary. More important, the conferences
have provided a sense of identity for people in MK ministry as part of a
worldwide movement which is central to the Great Commission.

Planning for Regional Networks

This review of the post-ICMK conferences was descriptive and

analytical. The final section of this essay is intended to all those in MK

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ministry who desire to see the regional conferences continue in support of
MK ministry and care. ACSI offers the service of regional MK conference
planning as one of its membership benefits, and serves as the sponsoring
agency for these conferences. However, it serves in a facilitating role; the
steering committee of each region sets the agenda of the conferences. The
following recommendations are intended to support future conferences for
the broadest community possible.

Looking into the future of regional conferences for MK educators and

caregivers some challenges emerge. First, containing the expense of
travel, registration, and accommodations at any regional conference must
continue as a priority in conference planning. To maximize the potential
benefits of these conferences, as many people as possible must attend.
High attendance is result of careful needs assessment, high quality
presenters, and inexpensive venues.

The conferences need to address all encompassing topics so that a

broad spectrum of MK educators and caregivers are interested in attending.
The conferences should position themselves as the inspirational and
professional development conference for boarding home personnel as well
as teachers and administrators. The conferences should not become
platforms for narrow agendas, and should be open to input from outside.

If the conferences are to be a meeting place of ideas, organizers and

participants need to be willing to open up the conference to schools differ-
ing in mission statements and target communities. The conference should
be open and attractive to everyone involved in ministry to MK and
expatriate Christian communities, regardless of the percentage of MKs in
the student body, or whether the school is primarily American, inter-
national, or of another cultural heritage. The conferences will build up
each of the ministries and ministers (including educators) as they join in
exploring issues from biblical perspectives.

The ICMK conferences in Manila, Quito, and Nairobi revealed the

importance of ministry to MKs and sensitized us to the need to make our
services as effective as possible. The regional conferences have continued
to prioritize the need to work out the best ministry in each unique context,
drawing from the wisdom and experience of colleagues in ministry.

Development of Regional Networks

483

Some of the issues needing attention will remain the same, and will

need to be repeated due to staff turnover. But other challenges will be new.
The regional conferences will continue to be an important means to
address these challenges, learn together, and find joy in the knowledge that
we are not alone in our ministry to MKs.

1. Edlin, Richard "Educators Re-affirm Link Between MK Education

and MK Nurture." ACSI World Report, Spring, 1993, p. 9.

2. Greenhalgh, David. "The ICMK Resolutions: A Proposed Course

of Action." ACSI World Report, Spring, 1993, pp. 6-8.

Part VII:

Looking Toward
the Future

485

54.

Trends in Missions:
Implications for Future MKs

Paul E. Nelson

Windows of opportunity, new thrusts, pilot projects, and dozens of

other short-lived strategies for world evangelization come and go in the
missions community every year or two. Some of these emerge from
visionary missiology, some from geopolitical upheavals, some from
economic pressures, and some, unfortunately, from limited insight.
Relatively few are viable long enough to become generally recognized
trends. However, there are three realities in today's worldwide missions
community that most observers agree are genuine trends.

These three are especially significant for families because they will

have an impact the way tomorrow's missionary kids grow up, define their
cultural identity, and receive their education. They are (1) the globalization
of the missions community, (2) the increasingly diverse contexts in which
traditional and nontraditional missionaries work, and (3) the length of time
missionaries are on the field.

Globalization of the Missions Community

The fact that there are classifications like new sending countries and

old sending countries or Western missionaries and non-Western
missionaries provides some insight into the globalization of the missionary
force. While there may be differences in the way people calculate the
actual number of cross-cultural missionaries in each of these class-
ifications, there is no dispute over the fact that the missions community is
as diverse and multinational as the church itself. The implications of this
trend toward a more multicultural missions community for future
generations of MKs are both exciting and problematic.

The universal message inherent in a multinational missions team is

that the gospel of Christ's redemption is far more than a religion of the
country or region from which the missionary comes. MKs who are part of
this multicultural missionary community may grow up with a world view
that includes a profound understanding of the diverse world Christ came to

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redeem. Neither the message nor the gifts for ministry belong to
outsiders--they are not the possession of Westerners who choose to share
them with others less fortunate. MK schools can be enriched by the hist-
ory, literature, and traditions of their multicultural student body. MKs can
find commonality in Christ rather than in the culture of their parents.

While this opportunity has been assumed to be part of MKs'

experience, reality often falls short of this ideal. De facto strategies have
been based on the assumption that fulfilling the Great Commission was
less complicated when missionaries were clustered into culturally homo-
geneous enclaves and teams. In this configuration, they could develop a
cooperative strategy to reach a specific language group or geographic
region with a minimum of cultural dissonance within the team. One
frequently expressed motivation for this inferred strategy comes from the
desire to have MKs retain the cultural and national identity of their parents.

Western missionaries, particularly North Americans, have responded

to this concern by establishing loose networks of schools around the world
that reflect the content, style, and values of the educational system in their
country of citizenship. Non-American missionaries are usually invited to
send their children to these schools but, to the chagrin of some parents,
their children lose much of their language and cultural identity in the
process. As the globalization of the missions community continues, there
will be increased pressure and impetus to adopt a more inclusive schooling
model. Replicating the American pattern by establishing separate schools
for each expatriate group will never be practical. The costs are too high
and the results unsatisfactory. The context in which the informal American
MK school system was built is not the context of tomorrow.

In the new multinational missions community, the options for edu-

cation and models for families in cross-cultural ministry will be based on a
much higher level of parent involvement. As options for education
increase, there will need to be an emphasis on helping parents from all
sending countries identify and evaluate the relative value and appro-
priateness of each option available to their children. The questions that
should be asked by missionary parents from all nationalities will need to be
standardized. The answers will need to come from the missions
community at large, not just North American educators. Those involved in
MK care and education will need to represent a multinational resource

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487

base, and they will need to work together to create additional options that
will serve a multinational student population.

Parents can be helped to develop the tools that will enable them to

take a more proactive role in becoming part of the answer as well as in part
of the decision making. If this is the kind of response the missions
community makes to the challenges inherent in a globalized missions
community, then the exciting possibilities for the global church and for
tomorrow's MKs will be multiplied. If the response is to continue
clustering missionaries into cultural enclaves, then these and many other
opportunities to demonstrate unity in Christ will be lost.

Diverse Contexts

The second trend that will have an impact on tomorrow's MKs is the

increasingly isolated and diverse contexts in which traditional and non-
traditional missionaries work. Terms like creative access, host-church,
bivocational, foreign student, and mentor/consultant, are replacing terms
like missionary visas, pioneer missionary, church planter, missionary
doctor, and mission compound. Many of tomorrow's cross-cultural
Christians will be as distant from the term "missionary" as today's teams
working in Northern Africa are distant from the term "crusade."

The impact of these changes on tomorrow's MKs will be experienced

as an incremental loss of the close-knit missionary subculture. Aunties
and uncles who were the printers, nurses, pilots, teachers, mechanics,
secretaries, facilities managers, dorm parents, and almost everything else
needed to sustain an often idyllic self-contained community will be gone.
Complex political, religious, and demographic changes will cause many of
the missionary enclaves to be embarrassingly visible and unacceptably
vulnerable.

The only way agencies and missionaries will be able to continue

working in some countries will be to become integrated into the local
community and participate in the local economy. Developing as well as
developed countries will become increasingly selective in who they identify
as potentially helpful to their citizens, government, and economy. Other
countries will join the growing number of "creative access" regions of the

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world and extend visas to expatriates based on their perceived value to
their country, not on what foreigners propose to do.

These new "missionaries" will have to find appropriate ways to

balance their vision for sharing Christ with fulfilling their legal and ethical
obligations to the host country. Some will seek for this balance through
consultation with colleagues and will be guided by their mission agency or
sending church's strategy. The complexity of local situations may force
other nontraditional missionaries develop their identity and strategy
without much outside counsel. Small three- or four-family mission agen-
cies created to target creative-access countries will also be part of this mix.
Most of them will have little experience with the complexity of ministry in
these settings but their presence will affect the way every Christian is
perceived.

Regardless of how these individuals or groups choose to function in

these stressful settings, they will develop their ministry and identity with-
out the network of support systems and supportive relationships many of
today's missionaries enjoy. Their ministry and role in the community will
emerge through the institutions to which they are attached or the local jobs
they hold, but the new MKs in these families will struggle to find a place
in which they to thrive.

Children of diplomats, executives of multinational companies, relief

and development workers, university professors, entrepreneurial business
men and other nonimmigrant expatriates, all have culturally acceptable
roles in their community. Children of nontraditional missionaries whose
families no longer identify themselves as "missionaries" face a significant
dilemma, "How do I maintain my integrity as I tell my friends why we are
here?" To their supporting constituencies back home, they are
missionaries, but in the community where they live, they are not permitted
to acknowledge their true purpose.

Beyond this question of identity is the question of peer support.

Children whose parents are in the military, diplomatic corps, international
business, and other expatriate roles have a virtual global community of
peers to which they also belong. Shared values and experiences tend to
give these global nomads a sense of belonging wherever they go. For
generations, MKs have benefited from and have been supported by their

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world-wide sense of belonging and connectedness with other MKs. For
many, this identity has provided a critical source of security that affirmed
their cultural and world-view differences as an advantage rather than a
deficiency.

The unique nature of tomorrow's missions community will create

some dilemmas for nontraditional missionary families. Unlike their
expatriate colleagues in business or government, the source of funds for
these missionaries is not directly related to the work they do. Members of
the community may not be aware of this anomaly, but the children in the
family most certainly are. Along with the support funds comes a complex
set of relationships with several constituencies including sending churches
and sponsoring agencies.

Communicating with these constituencies is vital to continuing

financial support, but guarding what is said and how people reply can get
complicated. Add to this complexity the underlying spiritual dimension to
everything the family says or does. The very motivation for being in that
community tends to separate them from other expatriates with whom they
would normally bond. In a significant way, these differences will keep
tomorrow's MKs from finding an identity with other MKs as well as with
their age and cultural peers in the global community.

The disconnectedness of tomorrow's missions community will add to

the complexities MKs will face. Without the reassurance of traditional
links with peers who share their understanding of the joys and stresses of
growing up in the missions community, tomorrow's MKs will face some
unprecedented challenges. The close-knit communities that existed in MK
schools, with mission colleagues, and in missionary enclaves will not be
available to fill the void. Mental health professionals and other caregivers
caution that the resulting sense of loneliness and isolation may have
far-reaching effects on tomorrow's creative-access MKs.

Length of Time Overseas

The third trend in worldwide missions that will have an impact on

tomorrow's MKs is a reduction in the length of time families remain in
field-based missionary work. Tomorrow's missionaries will have an
entirely different frame of reference for the term "career missionary."

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Limited term missionaries who lack the requisite lifetime commitment, or
people who can't make it in cross-cultural ministry, may still be called
"dropouts" by veteran missionaries, missiologists, and researchers. At best,
they might simply be considered second- or third-career professionals who
enter missions later in life. In any case, the trend will continue.
Demographers and sociologists support the probability that "career" will
mean two to six years for many of tomorrow's missionaries.

The significance of this reality for tomorrow's MKs creates several

interesting scenarios. For some it will be viewed as a wonderful oppor-
tunity to have their world view expanded and enriched through the
experience of living in another culture. Depending on their developmental
stage, they may find their years as foreigners wonderfully fulfilling and
formative. It may be the defining event that shapes their values, faith, and
priorities. However, they will not see themselves as culturally different
from their peers in their country of citizenship. They will not experience
the same dissonance upon returning to their country of citizenship other
MKs experience, and their cultural identity will not change. The "third-
culture kid" profile will not describe them.

Others may see this time of cross-cultural ministry as critically

disruptive to their relationships, education, and opportunities, with few
compensating benefits. They will not become part of the missions sub-
culture that will provide them with the deep, sibling-like relationships that
many MKs cherish. The sense of security and identity that comes from
being part of the virtual MK community will not be there to help them cope
with the disorientation and rootlessness they may feel as they re-enter their
home country. They will not fit well in either the mission subculture or in
the culture in which they lived for a brief time. They will find it difficult to
fit back in their home culture because they have been disconnected during a
critical developmental period. The stresses and ambivalence inherent in
cross-cultural living can sow the seeds of resentment and bitterness that
will dampen vision and strain family relationships well into adult life.

Just as their nontraditional MK counterparts may find it difficult to

find an identity in their ambiguous world, so children of limited term
missionaries may find it difficult to cope with the unarticulated, open-
endedness that is common in their world. It is difficult for adults to leave
the missions community when the inferred message is that leaving before

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retirement represents some level of failure. While this frame of reference
may change in future years, as long as mission administrators and
supporting churches hold this opinion, there will be relatively few
"acceptable" reasons for leaving the field.

One of those culturally acceptable reasons will continue to be the

needs of the children. Regardless of the of real reasons a family may have
for leaving their mission prematurely, identifying the children as the
problem seems to be relatively safe. Asserting that they were not adjusting
well or their educational needs were not being met raises few judgmental
inquiries from mission administrators or financial supporters.

Offering an explanation that focuses on the children may help parents

return to their church and community with a certain level of respect. They
may be affirmed for being willing to make that kind of sacrifice for the
sake of their children. However, the consequences for the child can be
profound. When someone in a position of authority tells a child that he or
she is so dysfunctional that their whole family had to come home, that child
believes it. Add to that the inferred burden of disappointing God who
called them to that ministry, and most children conclude that there must be
something seriously wrong with them.

When popularly reported research presents this widely practiced

deception as the primary reason for preventable missionary attrition, at
least two harmful results are perpetuated. First, it reinforces the practice
within local churches and the missions community, increasing the
likelihood that it will be embraced or copied by missionaries from new
sending countries as a socially acceptable way to return home. Second,
using a child as the scapegoat makes it almost impossible to talk about the
real issues involved in a family's decision to leave the field.

The future may see churches, mission agencies, and host colleagues

using the language of "specified term missionaries" and "task specific
assignments" rather than "drop-outs." If they can move toward accom-
modating reality, they can remove the lifelong stigma associated with
attrition and the dysfunctional need to formulate a socially acceptable
reason for doing something intended from the beginning.

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Paradigm Changes Needed

As one looks for ways to maximize the advantages and minimize the

difficulties for MKs and families fulfilling the Great Commission in the
next decade, there are two paradigm changes that may need to be explored.
The first is not a major change in practice as much as a recognition that
every parent in the increasingly globalized missions community has a
stake in finding answers to complex questions concerning their children.

It might be helpful provide them with an opportunity and tools to
formulate the right questions concerning their children as well as sources to
which they may go for answers.

Sometime during the pre-field process parents need to be given a

forum in which they can ask, "Who do I want my child to be culturally,
spiritually, academically, vocationally and in other ways when he or she is
eighteen years old?" Finding adequate answers to these questions will
provide a basis for making dozens of other decisions concerning their
children. Decisions such as where to serve, how to handle education, the
appropriateness of boarding school, the timing and use of furloughs, and
when to leave the field can be much more intentional when the desired
outcomes are defined.

Both traditional and nontraditional missionary parents need to be

encouraged to be proactive in issues that concern their children. They
should be helped to seek the advice of colleagues, field leaders, teachers,
grandparents, and others about what they ought to do if they want their
children to be "normal." They should be challenged to make fewer
decisions by default.

One family may determine that there are specific values from their

home culture they wish to retain and see reflected in their children as
adults. The parents should be guided in specific actions they can take to
identify and affirm these values before they leave home. They should also
develop strategies to retain them while they are on the field. The things
they take with them, the places they choose to live, the way they carry out
their ministry, and how they spend their discretionary time will all reflect
their decision to retain values from home.

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Another couple may place a high value on making their ministry

incarnational and see their family becoming part of the local culture as an
integral part of their strategy for ministry. They may need encouragement
to have their child become fluent in the local language and closely identify
with the local culture. If their working theology of culture is tolerant of
local differences, choices concerning where they will live and which edu-
cational options they will choose for their children are relatively straight-
forward.

Most missionary families will fall somewhere between these two

extremes. They will be torn between fulfilling their missiological ideal and
wanting their children to have educational experiences and a cultural
identity as much like their own as possible. Making proactive choices
concerning the desired long-range outcomes for their children will help
families manage that tension more constructively. Rather than allowing
immediate circumstances to dictate their options, they can be encouraged to
evaluate the probable outcomes for their family and make decisions that are
better informed.

The ultimate choice and result for the child may be exactly as it would

have been had the parents not done any long-range planning. But when the
probable outcomes are weighed and decisions made with more complete
information, there will be much less anxiety about whether their child will
be "normal." A second paradigm change might be a little more
fundamental than encouraging all parents to do some long-range planning.
It involves looking differently at who are presumed to be members of a
missionary family.

Family in the missions community is usually a Western style nuclear

unit: father, mother, and children. In most non-Western cultures in which
this nuclear group is living, family means extended family: grandparents,
aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on. For generations, members of these
family-based cultures have viewed the foreign missionary's nuclear family
as unusual, and in some cases irresponsible and negligent. Members of
most host cultures have accepted this unnatural family model as strange,
but few have adopted it as their own.

Extended Families as Ministering Units

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In the future, the missions community may well need to include

extended families as the ministering units, along with nuclear families. In
the North American missions community, it is becoming increasingly
common to see middle-aged, second career professionals and early retirees
serving alongside young families who view missions as their first of several
careers. Because neither of these generations sees the likelihood of a
thirty-year investment in cross-cultural ministry, the climate may be right
to introduce a new paradigm.

One can easily envision a Christian family in which two or three

generations share a common vision for cross-cultural ministry. They may
have assumed that one member of this godly family will be a missionary,
and the others will support them financially and in other ways. In a family
like this, it is also easy to foresee a time when the parents might become
actively involved in short-term missions at the same time their children are
preparing for their cross-cultural ministry with a traditional mission
agency.

Rather than have the parents or grandparents move in one direction

and the children and grandchildren in another, perhaps the mission agency
and home church could work together to encourage them to fulfill their
vision for ministry as an extended family. Pre-field preparation could
include elements to help them understand the strengths and potential
pitfalls of multiple generations serving together. They could be challenged
to create a powerful model of cultural sensitivity for Christians in other
cultures. The potential for building a whole new level of appreciation and
respect for one another is exciting.

Few Western families have any experience with this type of inter-

generational living and working relationship. Special training and prep-
aration for each member of the extended family will need to be developed.
This could be done with the active involvement of Christians from cultures
who understand the underlying assumptions and values of cultures in which
the interdependence of extended families provides the underpinnings for
their society. Exploring this new paradigm, with all its inherent risks,
could create an entirely new level of trust and understanding with
colleagues from cultures where extended family responsibilities and
structures are the norm. They would become the teachers, mentors, and re-
source people in an area where their expertise and experience are obvious.

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For a variety of reasons, Christians from new sending countries are

following the nuclear rather than the extended family model when they
become cross-cultural missionaries. The extreme loneliness and isolation
many of them experience may be the result of being cut off from the
counsel, support, and interdependence provided by their extended families.
Some of the difficulties tomorrow's Western as well as non-Western MKs
will face might be reduced with more family members accessible and
involved with them in their life and ministry. Their cultural identity and
language will almost certainly be more firmly established with three
generations interacting on a daily basis.

Grandparents can have a level of credibility and trust in many

communities that thirty-year-olds will never receive. The family's identity
in thheir adopted country will be much more like that of immigrants than of
rootless transients.

The potentially negative impact of all three of the trends described

previously could be minimized if this approach to families in ministry were
successfully implemented. If a significant number of tomorrow's
missionaries were in extended families, issues of cultural identity, creative
access, and limited longevity might all be less significant. New realities
call for new approaches and this extended family model may be a way to
accommodate those new realities. In the complex world in which tomor-
row's MKs will live, there will be new challenges and new opportunities.
The trends we observe in the worldwide missions community may be part
of God's strategy for building his church or they may be evidences of the
church's indifference. Either way, the church must recognize that there will
be a cost to taking the gospel to people who have never heard it. As long
as spiritually sensitive Christians, missions-minded sending churches, and
visionary mission leaders participate in sending workers into The Harvest,
there will be personal risks and rewards. MK caregivers who promote the
notion that risks for missionary families are unacceptable must re-examine
their understanding of discipleship. Christ's love is demonstrated through
the way Christians care for and love one another. MKs, both today's and
tomorrow's, will continue to present the church around the world with
opportunities to demonstrate that love.

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55.

Trends in Member Care

David C. Pollock

I recall a conversation in the office of Dr. John Gratian, then the

candidate secretary for Africa Inland Mission. It was 1975, and John
shared his vision for the future of missions and the need for intentional
pastoral care of missionaries. At that point, the vision was not widely
shared, and the specifics of how to do it were not clear. He was asking a
young mission-minded pastor to go to Kenya to develop pastoral care for
missionaries, but in the mid-1970s neither Dr. Gratian nor the pastor were
certain what the product would look like.

From Dr. Gratian's vision came the opportunity to observe, respond,

and begin to picture a model of care from the call of the missionary to the
end of missionary service and beyond. The work in Kenya initiated what is
now known as the "flow of care." The flow of care includes appropriate
discipleship, preparation, protection, intervention, support and care
covering pre-experience preparation, transition, on-site adjustment and
support, preparation for re-entry, re-entry adjustment, and support
following the overseas experience. (See Chapter 4 for a more detailed
description.)

During the next decade, apart from the Kenya experiment, there was

increasing awareness of the need for intentional care and support of
missionaries. That awakening created the response to the first Inter-
national Conference on Missionary Kids, held in Manila, Philippines, in
1984. When Paul Nelson and I began to plan for ICMK Manila, with the
support of MKOS (Missionary Kids Overseas Schools) in Asia, we
anticipated one hundred participants at most. We were amazed when well
over three hundred people "came running," as one MK missionary put it.
The awakening to member care, including care for missionary kids, was
underway.

What we thought would be a single conference was followed by

another ICMK in Quito, Ecuador, in 1987 and a third in Nairobi, Kenya, in
November 1989. In subsequent years, regional gatherings designed to
focus on specific groups and needs followed. In 1992 European mission
leaders convened EuroComet (European Conference on Children of

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Missionaries Education and Training). Other regional and topical
conferences were developed to train, inform, and coordinate the efforts of
MK educators and caregivers throughout the world. (See Chapter 53 for
details of the development of MKOA, MKEA, and MCOS.) The
December 1996 conference, sponsored by MCOS (Missionary and
Christian Overseas Schools in Asia), marked a new era with a significant
percentage of participants from the "new" sending countries as well as
non-North American "old" sending countries.

In 1993, Dr. William Taylor, director of the World Evangelical

Fellowship Missions Commission, initiated a study of missionary attrition
called "ReMAP." More than 450 agencies from fourteen countries (eight
"new" and six "old" sending countries) were questioned regarding attrition
statistics and reasons for attrition according to their records. The study
was presented to a task force of nearly one hundred twenty representatives
from thirty different countries, which met in 1996 in Ware, England. The
recommendations and plans of that task force were published in the book,
Too Valuable to Lose

, edited by Bill Taylor (Pasadena: William Carey

Library, 1997). The research, task force, book, and resulting activity have
put in motion a global wave which is altering the future of world missions
by shaping the ways we care for one another.

These are not the only indicators of change, but they illustrate an

awaking that is critical to missions. Intentional care is not a fringe
benefit.

It is an essential part of responsible obedience to God's command

to "go into all the world." It involves both the "old"sending countries and
the "new" sending countries, with their growing numbers of missionaries
and complex challenges related to family, language, education, and cultural
difference, even within the mission teams.

Why Is It Needed Now?

Why is such intentionality critical now, if people got along without it

in the past? Recently I heard a third-generation adult missionary kid
relating a conversation with her elderly grandmother about this very issue.
The missionary grandmother said, "All this fuss! We didn't need care
from others; we took care of ourselves and each other."

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Many things have changed since the grandmother's day! Fifty years

ago, missionaries usually came from independent stock in rural
communities. People from such backgrounds knew how to be supportive
to each other. They worked together, intervened when one was injured or
ill, and basically survived together. These people's independence and
interdependence were carried to the overseas setting.

Changing Expectations

Expectations have changed radically. Early missionaries expected to

face great hardship and even death. Some missionaries were advised to
pack their gear in a casket for shipment, because it would be needed sooner
or later. Without any likelihood of care being provided physically, psych-
ologically, or educationally, expectations were very modest. Today, care
and support are considered to be a right by more and more people.
Brokenness and change in the family, society, and cultural structure have
removed foundations of healthy development and altered traditional
support structures. The capacity for mutual care through extended families
and stable neighborhoods can no longer be assumed.

Another reflection of changing expectations is the change of titles of

executives who are responsible for workers, whether secular or church-
related. When John Gratian spoke with me in 1975, his position was
"candidate secretary," reflecting that his job was primarily recruitment of
new missionaries. A decade later, his title would become "personnel
director," with a broader scope of responsibilities, including personnel
policy administration. In the 1990s, the position would be "director for
human resources," reflecting a widespread recognition that people are more
effective workers if their needs for training, growth, and personal
investment are taken seriously. The popularity of the American cartoon
Dilbert

, which portrays the opposite attitudes, demonstrates how important

this is in our culture.

Changing Roles of Missionaries

Early missionaries were often pioneers. As principals, administrators,

evangelists, and church leaders, missionaries made most of the decisions.
It was not possible to communicate quickly with the home office, and there

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was no established Christian leadership to consult on the field. While life
was very difficult physically, the missionary was clearly in charge and
usually held in high esteem. Today, missionaries serve in partnership with
national peers and often under the authority of national leaders. Decisions
are made according to local cultural patterns, and the missionaries
sometimes feel they have little input in decisions which affect their lives.
Roles of missionaries are far more complex and ambiguous than in the
past, adding a great deal of stress to missionary life and increasing the need
for support and wise counsel.

Non-Traditional Missionary Roles

Another change is the increasing number of missionaries in non-

traditional roles. Missionaries who work as "tentmakers" in limited-access
countries do not have the support of a missionary community or national
church, and they may also lack a clear sense of role. Many newer sending
organizations are too small to have well-developed support programs.

Changing Roles of Women

Women's roles and expectations have changed radically in the West

in recent decades. A century ago, becoming a missionary was the most
exciting opportunity available for a Christian woman. Today, women have
many options for careers and may assume that they will have significant
professional roles as missionaries. Then, once overseas, married women in
particular are frequently faced with role limitations because of cultural
factors, few opportunities in their location, or board policies which ignore
their needs and aspirations. They may find themselves doing home
teaching or other tasks for which they have neither aptitude nor training.

Even if a missionary woman has a well-defined role appropriate to her

gifts and training, in many places there are severe cultural restrictions on
such things as dress and public activities. Thus, many women need
assistance in sorting out the issues and discerning what God's will is for
them. Without appropriate support, the frustration missionary wives feel
inevitably affects their family life. As the saying goes, "When Mama ain't
happy, ain't nobody happy."

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Safety and Security Issues

There is increasing stress in missionary life in the area of safety and

security. In some locations wealthy people, whether nationals or
foreigners, must protect their property with high fences and security
guards. Many urban areas have large populations of unemployed young
men with few opportunities to support themselves. Missionaries, by virtue
of owning the tools of their trade such as computers and vehicles, are
considered wealthy and can be targets for break-ins or even armed robbery.
They wrestle with how to demonstrate God's love for the poor.

Another safety issue is increasing civil strife and political unrest.

"Wars and rumors of wars" seem to be the daily experience of more and
more of the world's peoples. Missionaries struggle with decisions about
how much risk to take and when to leave or face evacuation. Provisions for
evacuation are a very mixed blessing, as missionaries must leave behind
nationals who are close friends and valued coworkers, and post-trauma care
may be critical for missionaries' continued service.

A related risk of missionary service (and other expatriate careers) is

kidnapping. Motives usually have little to do with the individual or
assignment, so kidnapping is difficult to prevent. Kidnapping is usually an
attempt to get ransom money, or an indirect result of local political
tensions. It is rarely given much publicity, because that would play into the
wrong hands. Kidnapping is not common, but when it happens, well-
trained consultants are urgently and immediately needed. The few
professionals who have such specialized skills need to be widely available.
Trauma care is also needed for the victim, the family, and the local mission
community, even if the victims are eventually released.

The Biblical Mandate and Model of Care

The most important issue, however, is not need. The biblical man-

date for care is not a 20th or 21st-century phenomenon. Jesus com-
manded us to care for each other in John 13:34-35, and included our care
of children (Matthew 16). New Testament writers echoed those instruc-
tions in II Peter, I John, Ephesians, and Philippians. Barnabas modeled
encouragement and care in his relationship to the body of believers in

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general (Acts 4:36) and his mentoring of Saul (later Paul) and John Mark
(Acts 15:36 ff). The product of Barnabas' care is seen not only in John
Mark's evident usefulness (II Tim. 4:11) but also in Paul's mellowness and
encouragement of a frightened young believer (II Tim. 1:7).

The model of mutual care in Christian community permeates the New

Testament. The writers of II Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, Philemon, and I
Corinthians reflect the fact that it was unusual for someone to be left alone.
Paul's complaint and plea to Timothy (II Tim. 4:9 ff) was related to being
left and needing support.

The primary reason for intentional care of missionaries at the

beginning of the 21st century is that we have a mandate and a model from
Christ. We cannot ignore Jesus' words if we claim to be his followers.
The secondary reason for well-planned intentional care is increased need
because of cultural changes and the fracturing of support structures. Both
individualistic and collective societies are in the midst of massive change,
with little to protect the individual and family from disaster.

What's Ahead in Member Care?

The increase in both need and demand for care is simply a fact of life.

Mission leaders are confronted with the need for member care in order to
increase missionary effectiveness and decrease attrition. The vision for
care, based on biblical mandates and models, provides energy and
motivation for action. The resulting increase in caregiving activity in the
missions context, while usually less well organized, is encouraging. The
pieces are coming together for new and effective responses to sometimes
overwhelming needs.

The World Evangelical Fellowship Missions Commission is taking

the initiative to encourage and facilitate the development of coordinated,
cooperative plans for delivering care to missionaries and their families
around the world. Dr. Kelly O'Donnell has been instrumental in spreading
the vision for appropriate care of missionaries in Latin America, North
Africa, the Middle East, Europe, East Asia, and Central Asia. Dr. Kenneth
Gamble of the Missionary Health Institute of Canada, along with his
colleagues, has been seeking ways to cooperatively deliver consistent care
to missionary personnel. Mission leaders in New Zealand and Australia

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are seeking to bring care providers into official relationships with mission
"umbrella" agencies to make their services more accessible to individual
mission agencies.

Dr. David Lee Tai Woong leads a team of colleagues in Korea in

pursuing care of people under the agency of Global Missions as well as
influencing other mission organizations in Korea and beyond. Polly Chan
in Hong Kong is leading the way for greater care of missionary families,
and especially MKs, of Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Brazilian and
Nigerian mission leadership are giving voice to their needs and their
commitment to meeting the needs. The people and agencies mentioned
here are examples of a trend toward cooperation and coordination, not just
caring for their own missionaries.

According to Kelly O'Donnell, "We must move beyond the

individual, family, and agency approaches to care, and develop a more
systematic, global, cooperative approach to providing member care. We
must develop a macro-model for member care."

Models are being developed, even as this chapter is written. I believe

the vision that Dr. O'Donnell has articulated is the beginning of design for
a "highway system," to enable individual care providers and smaller
agencies to build their "ten miles of good road" as part of a comprehensive
system. Dr. O'Donnell's article, "Agenda for Member Care" in the book
Missionary Care

(Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1900) indicates

directions for the future which are summarized here:

· We must prioritize and channel member care resources toward

those working among the least evangelized.

· We must be intentional in the development of member care

through mutual consultation, coordinated efforts, perseverance,
and interdependence.

· We must mirror the expansion of the worldwide missions force

with appropriate, comprehensive member care programs and
services.

· We must develop cooperation among the "pockets" of member

care workers around the world, and mobilize and train many others
for this strategic ministry.

Trends in Member Care

503

Agencies such as Missionary Aviation Fellowship have provided

transportation and communication for the missions community. We need
to develop agencies that are similarly interconnected, providing com-
prehensive member care for the missions family all over the world.

"By this shall all people know that you are my disciples."

504

56.

Facing the Future:
Issues in MK Education

Philip M. Renicks

As we stand on the threshold of the twenty-first century, the church,

mission-sending agencies, missionary parents, and MK schools face the
challenge of meeting the educational needs of missionary kids (MKs).
Beginning in Manila in November 1984 with the first International
Conference on Missionary Kids, research has been conducted, conferences
convened, articles written, and pre-field orientation programs established
for MK teachers and boarding parents.

A wealth of resource materials is now available for making informed

decisions about MK education; you are holding one of them in your hands.
This book, which was produced through collaborative effort, represents a
serious effort to improve the quality of education and care in order to help
families fulfill their mandate to "go and make disciples of all nations,
...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." More tools
for parents and educators have been produced during the past decade than
over the previous 130 years.

Despite this recent progress, a closer examination of the issues and

the dynamics at work in the education of missionary children is still
needed. Dr. David Brooks states that "the most important goal of MK
education should be to help missionary families in the field of children's
education so that they may better reach people for Christ."

The basic educational needs of missionary families as we enter the

twenty-first century are very similar to those of families who led the way in
our modern era of missions. However, major changes have taken place in
the number of educational options available, and in how those options are
delivered. Earlier in this century, mission agencies had rigid policies
governing the educational choices for missionary families. Now, the
agencies have become more flexible, placing greater responsibility on
missionary parents for the education of their children.

The past five to seven years have seen new mission frontiers opening

in China, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the limited-access

Facing the Future: Issues in MK Education

505

countries of the "10-40 window," all of them calling a new generation of
pioneers to reach the lost for Christ. The question asked by most
missionary candidates is still, "What about my child's education?"

MK and international Christian schools around the world provide

missionary parents with good options for their children's education,
whether they choose boarding or day school. Many such schools, because
of changing needs and demands, are asking, "Who are we here to serve?
Should we serve only MKs, or should we serve the broader expatriate
community? Should we serve only MKs who can attend a day school
program, or have we matured enough to serve as an educational center for
families choosing a nontraditional approach to education?" These
questions demand that the school reexamine its mission statement and
perhaps even redefine its core values.

Dr. George Durance, formerly the director of Black Forest Academy,

a mission boarding school in Kandern, Germany, believes that the primary
goal of MK education is "...fostering a passionate love for truth in the
hearts and minds of our young people." The Dalat School in Penang,
Malaysia, recently redefined its mission as "to prepare young people to live
fully for God in a rapidly changing world by enabling them to understand,
evaluate, and reconcile that world with the foundation of God's unchanging
values." While these goals are not unique to MK education, they are
contextualized within the framework of an educational program that calls
students who are growing up in a culturally diverse world to discipleship in
a Christ-centered learning community.

Four Critical Issues

What are the most critical issues facing MK caregivers, parents, and

educators as they consider the challenges of preparing young people for the
next century? Where shall we focus our attention? How shall we respond?

Changing Demographics.

Missionary families from the

two-thirds world are answering the call of God for service abroad in
unprecedented numbers, resulting in an increasingly multicultural student
body in MK schools. Since most schools were established on a North
American model, they are often inadequately prepared to meet the
educational needs of a multinational student body. In some schools half the

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students come from non-English-speaking homes. Thus missionary
educators face the challenge of meeting the educational, emotional, social,
and spiritual needs of students they don't fully understand.

Parental Expectations.

Missionary parents in general have higher

expectations for the education of their children. They reason that since they
are making the sacrifice of living away from the educational services
available in their home country, the mission owes them the best it can
possibly provide for their children. They want the quality of education that
MK schools offer. They want their children to be well prepared to re-enter
the culture and educational system of their passport country. However rea-
sonable these expectations seem, missionary parents often leave the field
because of unfulfilled expectations for the education of their children.

School Personnel.

MK schools are facing the increasing difficulty of

finding and keeping qualified faculty and staff who can adjust to and meet
the needs of an increasingly multicultural student body. More and more
candidates are opting for short-term service, a development that takes its
toll on the continuity of the entire school program. The recruiting base has
traditionally been limited to North America, where the church has failed to
recognize the value of the MK educator in the context of missions. Thus,
the task of recruitment is becoming increasingly complex and difficult.

Educational Options.

A growing number of missionary families are

accepting the call of God to parts of the world that lack any access to an
expatriate Christian day school. If there is space available in a regional
boarding school, some parents may choose this option for high school
students. Even fewer parents will choose national schools and find them
adequate to meet their children's needs. Thus there is a growing demand
for programs that will provide missionary families with the educational
support they need to carry out their ministry.

It is impossible to examine all the issues and challenges that impact

the future of education for missionary families, MK schools, and the
agencies that serve them. The above list is limited, and yet I believe it
represents four of the most critical needs related to MK education as we
move into the twenty-first century. The list grows out of my experience as
an MK school educator and my role as Vice President of International
Ministries with the Association of Christian Schools International in

Facing the Future: Issues in MK Education

507

working with Christian schools in eighty-eight countries over the past
twenty-three years.

Each issue identified above requires serious thought and research.

These issues are not new, but they will go with us into the third
millennium. I believe we can look forward with anticipation to greater unity
in the body of Christ as we come together to address each of these and
other related issues.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As we deal with the challenges of changing demographics, parental

expectations, school personnel, and educational options, where do we go
from here?

Changing Demographics.

In the past ten years the missions move-

ment in the two-thirds world has grown five times faster than in the West.
As the church matures around the world, even greater numbers of mission-
aries will come from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. These changes
present exciting challenges. Along with the changing demographics, there
is an increased demand from outside the missions community for the
quality of biblically-based education offered by the MK and international
Christian school. Thus the demographic changes force the school to
reexamine its mission, again asking, "Who are we here to serve?"

The number of Korean students in MK and International Christian

schools is growing rapidly. School and mission leadership must be
proactive in determining how they can best serve this new segment of the
missions community. Phil Billing, Director of Murree Christian School in
Pakistan, traveled to Korea to gain firsthand knowledge of the Korean
educational system and Christian family life. He met with Korean mission
leaders to discuss educational and care needs of Korean missionary
families. Phil spent time in fellowship with Korean families to learn about
their culture and spiritual aspirations, and he investigated the possibility of
recruiting Korean staff for Murree Christian school.

The Korean church is exploring another model: to establish its own

educational system for Korean children. This is currently being tested in
Manila with the opening of the Hankuk Christian School. However, Phil
Billing reminds us that "the full potential for mission will be realized only

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if East and West can meet in a cooperative, collaborative, and integrated
approach to the task. MK schools and mission communities will benefit if
Korean MKs can be integrated into educational systems that are flexible
enough to provide for the diverse needs of a multicultural student body."

Regardless of the national origin of missionary families or the

educational setting they choose, expatriate Christian schools of the next
century must be determined to know the students and parents they serve,
including their culture and educational expectations. They must examine
their curriculum for its sensitivity to the multinational student body, and
they must work closely with missions leaders and parents to address issues
of education and MK and family care.

Parental Expectations.

The baby-boomer missionary generation has

strongly influenced the way we look at education for the missionary family.
Families are more likely to choose a nontraditional approach to education
even when a viable traditional option is available. Mission agencies and
others involved in the education of MKs must take a more active role in
preparing parents for the options available to them. Parents must be
informed and counseled to set realistic expectations for their children's
education. Mission candidate school or pre-field orientation must provide
parents with an opportunity to look objectively at the options.
Knowledgeable people must inform parents about the advantages and
limitations of each option as well as the implications for their children's
entry to higher education.

Today's missionary family has much more control over their

children's education than families of previous decades. This trend will
continue. I'm confident that if we address carefully the educational
concerns of missionary parents, we will also address one of the major
reasons for the attrition of missionaries. A research study by Jonathan
Lewis, Investigating the Causes and Cures of Attrition, rated "children"
second only to retirement as a reason for leaving missionary service.
Missionary parents must be encouraged to form partnerships with the MK
and international Christian school to help identify, locate, and provide
access to the resources that will meet their children's needs more
adequately within the limited scope of the school curriculum. Parents
cannot expect the school to do it all.

Facing the Future: Issues in MK Education

509

School Personnel.

Until a few years ago, the word "recruitment"

was unheard in mission personnel offices. However, with the increasing
number of MK and international Christian schools and paid positions
available for teachers in both the missions community and the international
community, the recruitment of school personnel has become a necessity.
ACSI recruiting fairs at Christian school teacher conventions and on
Christian college campuses in North America have played an important
role in linking mission agencies and international Christian schools with
potential candidates.

As we move into the next century the need for effective recruiting will

be even more acute as government agencies predict a shortage of teachers
worldwide. The international Christian school must examine carefully its
mandate, mission, vision, and educational goals. When recruiting teachers,
the school must be able to articulate its mission and vision clearly while
discovering as much as possible about the candidate. A good match is
critical. Attrition among MK caregivers will be minimized as we do a
better job of recruiting. School directors and administrators must take a
more active role in recruiting and not rely completely on home office
recruiters. With the increasing multinational complexity of the student
body in MK and international Christian schools, the base for recruiting
must broaden to include countries represented by students in the school.
This practice would assist the school staff in meeting the challenges of the
multinational student body.

Schools and sending agencies must take seriously the orientation and

induction of staff. To ignore that need is to stay in perpetual organizational
infancy. School administrations must stop squandering their human
resources by ignoring the orientation and induction needs of staff. ACSI
and Interaction Inc. offer a two-week intensive pre-field orientation for MK
caregivers. Statistics show that caregivers with pre-field orientation stay on
the field longer than those without it. In addition to pre-field orientation,
the international Christian school must establish an on-site induction
program for at least the first year of new teachers and caregivers. There
must be a greater effort to build a long-term mindset and help new staff
members take a sense of ownership in the mission and vision of the school.
Children attending the overseas school need stability and continuity in their
educational program. They need teachers and boarding parents who are

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committed, godly role models willing to make a long-term investment in
their education and nurture.

The topic of educational options could consume many pages. I will

list the options I believe demand closer attention as we move into the new
century.

Boarding Schools.

In 1995 Jim Reapsome, editor of Evangelical

Missions Quarterly

, raised the question, "Are boarding schools on their

way out?" A close examination of boarding schools around the world
would permit us to answer a resounding "No!" In fact, there seems to be a
greater demand for boarding schools today than a decade ago. A new
boarding school has just opened in Nairobi, Kenya; consideration is being
given to opening a boarding facility in conjunction with the International
Christian School of Budapest in Hungary; Black Forest Academy has just
opened additional boarding facilities; and there are waiting lists at the
International Christian Academy in Côte d'Ivoire, Faith Academy in the
Philippines, and Rift Valley Academy in Kenya. Boarding schools will
most certainly be listed among the viable options available to missionary
parents in the twenty-first century.

Boarding schools today are doing a better job as a result of research,

the training of caregivers through pre-field orientation, examination and
accreditation of boarding programs by ACSI, and the cross-pollination of
boarding personnel through international and regional conferences. While
boarding may not meet the needs of every missionary family, it will con-
tinue to be an option, particularly for high school students. The boarding
school must constantly evaluate the needs of the families it serves.

Nontraditional Educational Options.

These have always been

available to the missionary family. The Calvert system pioneered the way
for many missionary parents who home-schooled their children. With the
advance of technology, we are seeing an explosion of options. The advent
of the World Wide Web has opened a whole new range of educational
menus that can be downloaded virtually anywhere in the world, if mission-
ary parents have a cellular phone or a satellite link. The virtual school will
be a reality of the twenty-first century. The challenge is how to verify the
quality of instruction and assure accountability.

Facing the Future: Issues in MK Education

511

Missionary families who have answered God's call to the remote

regions of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, China, and the
limited-access countries of the "10-40 window" require support services
different from anything provided in the past through correspondence and
home schooling. Parents want their children to have the best education
possible. They want educators and educational institutions to be account-
able and to be closer to them than the correspondence provider in their
home country. The challenge is changing the mindset of the missions
culture, the home churches, and the MK school community to be less
judgmental about the educational options missionary families choose.

SHARE, an agency established to provide services, helps, and

resources in education for missionary parents serving in remote areas from
Eastern Europe to Central Asia, has proven an invaluable resource. This
model has far-reaching implications for the support of missionary families
well into the future. Under the leadership and vision of Dr. David Brooks,
Executive Director, SHARE has provided an innovative approach to
educational options apart from the established MK or international
Christian school.

SHARE provides help to families that have chosen national schools or

some form of home schooling. The staff designed pre-field conferences to
assist missionary parents in establishing realistic expectations, assessing
educational options, and making educational plans. SHARE also works
with existing MK and international Christian schools to provide regional
centers for the broader missionary community in the area. In addition, the
organization offers educational conferences dealing with the evaluation of
students' educational progress, educational planning, learning styles,
supplemental curriculum, and second-language issues.

The services provided by SHARE are unique. While they are currently

limited to Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and
Central Asia, such services will continue to be in demand worldwide as
missionaries move their families into limited-access countries of Africa, the
Middle East, and Asia.

In conclusion, we must face the challenges of the future with our eyes

wide open. We must constantly be aware of the shifting paradigms of a
rapidly changing world, and seek to be relevant in our application of a

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biblical model of curriculum as we serve the educational needs of MKs. We
must forge new networks of cooperation and establish linkages among new
mission-sending countries committed to living out the Great Commission.
We must heed the research of the past as we project the needs of the future.
We must recognize that the greatest danger we face may be assuming that
the answer to the future lies in holding on to the past.

Appendix

514

About the Contributors

Marilyn Pool Andreasson

resides in England and is working on her

Ph.D. in the area of Second Language Learning. She taught French in
Michigan and served in Côte d'Ivoire with CBInternational.

Tom and Wendy Ballentyne

serve as team parents in an MK

boarding home at Faith Academy in Manila, Philippines. Wendy is the
author of "Sour Grapes or Raisins?" published by Faith Academy.

Peter M. Blackwell

is the principal of the Rhode Island School for

the Deaf in Providence, R.I. Jan Blackwell is principal of the Cranston
Christian Academy in Providence, R.I. Together, they are frequent
speakers on curriculum issues in international settings.

Joyce M. Bowers

is Assistant for Mission History for the Division

for Global Mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She
and her husband served as educational missionaries in Liberia.

Polly Chan

is coordinator for Asian MKs in OMF. She served with

OMF as a teacher at Chefoo School in Japan and taught high school in
Hong Kong.

Richard J. Edlin

is the director for MK education for SIM Inter-

national. He served as the administrator of the Carachipampa Christian
School in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Evan and Jewel Evans

are dorm administrators for the International

Christian Academy in Côte d'Ivoire. Evan grew up as an MK in Vietnam
and Malaysia. Evan and Jewel serve as staff at the Pre-Field Orientation
sponsored by ACSI and Interaction.

Ollie E. Gibbs

is Headmaster of the Lexington Christian Academy in

Lexington, Kentucky. He formerly served as Vice President for Academic
Affairs of ACSI and travelled extensively.

Brian V. Hill

is Professor of Education at Murdoch University in

Western Australia, and editor of the Journal of Christian Education,
published by the Australian Teachers' Christian Fellowship.

Wayne D. Lance

is Managing Editor of Parents Teaching Overseas,

a newsletter published by Wycliffe Bible Translators. He is a retired
university professor and public school administrator.

Jean M. Larson

and her husband are the founders of Bridges, which

provides transition assistance to missionary families. They served at a
boarding school in Ft. Dauphin, Madagascar, for twenty years.

About the Contributors

515

Diane Lilleberg

is Associate Director for Curriculum Services,

serving with CHED Family Services of Wycliffe Bible Translators. She
and her family served with Wycliffe in Lomalinda, Colombia.

Michael G. Loftis

is the Executive Director for Central and Eastern

Europe with ABWE, and lives with his family live in Budapest, Hungary.
He grew up as an MK in Jamaica.

Roger H. Luce

is principal of Christiansen Academy in Venezuela

and serves as a missionary with TEAM.

Bonnie McGill

serves at Morrison Academy in Taiwan under OMS.

The article in this book is based on her research for a master's degree at
Azusa Pacific College.

Alan McIlhenny

is founder and principal of the Kathmandu Inter-

national Study Center in Nepal. He previous taught at the University of
Nepal, training math teachers.

Anne-Christine Marttinen

is Swedish Information Secretary of the

Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission. She has worked in Christian
education in Pakistan and has taught both Finnish and English.

Diane Morris

is Member Care Associate for MKs for OC Inter-

national. She served as a teacher and elementary counselor at Faith
Academy in Manila, The Philippines.

Judy Neil

is the principal of Bingham Academy in Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia, which was founded by SIM International.

Paul E. Nelson

is President of Mission Training International in

Colorado Springs, CO. He was a co-chairman of the ICMKs and served
as Superintendent of Education for Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Sally Jane Norton

is Director for Development at Faith Academy in

Manila, The Philippines. She and her husband served in a church planting
ministry with SEND International for eighteen years.

Nick Pauls

is International Coordinator for Children's Education and

Family Services of Wycliffe Bible Translators, Dallas, TX, assisted by
Dora Pauls

. They served as educators and administrators at Ukurumpa in

Papua New Guinea.

David C. Pollock

is Executive Director of Interaction, Inc. He was a

co-chairman of the ICMKs. He is a speaker, consultant and author who
specializes in the needs and care of Third- Culture Kids.

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John R. Powell

is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at

Michigan State University and a frequent speaker and writer on issues
related to missionary families. He is a founding member of the research
team of MK-CART/CORE.

Philip M. Renicks

is Vice President of International Ministries for

ACSI in Colorado Springs, Co. He served as High School Principal and
Assistant Director of Alliance Academy in Quito, Ecuador.

Ruth Goring

is a poet and writer, and works for InterVarsity Press in

Westmont, Illinois. She was a student at Wheaton College when she wrote
"I Am Green."

Cynthia Storrs

is the Women's Ministries Coordinator for Greater

Europe Mission, focusing on helping families and children in language and
cultural adaptation. She holds an M.A. in TESL.

William D. Taylor

is Director of the World Evangelical Fellowship

Missions Commission. He grew up as an MK in Costa Rica and served at
Seminario Teologico Centroamericano in Guatemala.

Steve Van Rooy

serves as Africa area staff in Kenya with Wycliffe

Bible Translators, and a liaison with several national Bible translation
organizations. He served as a translator in southeast Sudan.

Ted Ward

is Professor Emeritus of Trinity Evangelical Divinity

School in Deerfield, Illinois, and served for many years as a Professor of
Education at Michigan State University.

David L. Wickstrom

is a consultant to mission organizations and a

counselor of missionaries and MKs. He is a founding member of the
research team MK-CART/CORE and grew up as an MK in Nigeria.

David K. Wilcox

serves in the Office of International Ministries of

ACSI and editor of ACSI World Report. He served as Director of Dalat
School in Malaysia and at Alliance Academy, Quito, Ecuador.

Sandra D. Wright

is Director of International Family Services for

Mission Training International. She served at Faith Academy in The Phil-
ippines, and at American Christian School in Hofu, Japan.

Beth Wyse

is MK Care Coordinator for TEAM (The Evangelical

Alliance Mission) and has worked in Interaction's Transition Seminars.
She taught and coached at Christiansen Academy in Venezuela.