As a friend of ours once put it "I signed up to be a missionary, but my kids were drafted." We've noticed that many of you have asked the questions "how are your kids taking it?" or "Have you talked to them about it?" It, being the move to Papua New Guinea.
From the very beginning our children have been our primary concern in this entire affair. Before even considering this seriously we researched how children adapt, what challenges they face, both in leaving and in returning to America. How multi-culturalism affects them and in what ways. Would we be signing up to never see our kids again once they come of age because they too have a global perspective and go into the mission field?
Today in church we spoke of Giving willingly and cheefully to God. Many people were considering the gift as money or time. I spent the day thinking of it as a sacrificial gift of my children's future. Reliquinshing their future in faith to God.
Parents already know they have a very limited control over their kids safety, and future. You try to influence it, you pray.. and pray.. and hope and worry and fear and pray. In perspectives class the mothers were asked to pray their daughters to Muslim countries. WOAH! Were we really willing to do that?
In a more general sense, as parents are we truly willing to let go of our most precious treasure to God like Abraham did with Isaac? Having full faith that God knows what He is doing, is more easily said and done when it doesn't involved your kids.
It still tears me up that possibly God could be calling us to embark on a journey that will most likely end up with us not sitting at home in our old age with our grandkids around our ankles or on our knees.
Are we willing to have cross racial marriages with our kids?
Are we willing to have a non-primary English speaking son in law?
Are we willing to not see our kids on a weekly basis once we retire?
The answer has to be yes, but it's a struggle to get to it.
Right now as I type this I'm breaking up because in the other room my daughter is singing beautifully "take my hand, precious Jesus, I am yours.. take my heart I am yours... drive my life." She's six. She doesn't know I'm typing this... but that's what I'm hearing... as if God told her to speak to my heart this very moment.
With the perfect amount of humor too because as she asked Jesus to drive she then sings "beep beep". How can we part from that?
Well this is probably what the grandparents are struggling with right now, and all the while I pray for their ability to cope emotionally I am praying this:
"God everything we have is given to us by You, and we dedicated it all to Your name that You may be glorified.....and if there's a way in the future to get that done and still be close geographically as a family, we sure would appreciate it."
So we don't pray "please don't send us to Africa" instead we pray "if you send us to Africa, could you find us a house big enough for everyone ?"
I could go on for a very long time about the role of families in the Old Testament and answering God's call but I still haven't answered the main question.
At first our kids didn't like the idea, because all they heard was leaving.
My wife and I decided we needed to instill in them a global perspective, which meant teaching them about other countries and about other peoples. So we did.
They still don't want to leave their best friends, but they are getting excited about moving to Papua New Guinea.
Tonight, we taught them where Pakistan was.
We told them what the climate was like, what the people are called, that they don't believe Jesus is God's son, and we created a weekly list of prayers for the missionaries we know there. They are able to find Pakistan on a globe and are praying for the missionaries and for the Muslims.
The point is, I'm told Americans are the least globally minded people of the major political power countries. We have dedicated a few minutes each Sunday (after football) to talk about 1 country and how we can pray for that country.
As we do this, we hope to see the kids start to understand God's desire to teach others about who Jesus is and how we can play a part in that. Children adapt quickly and while they are a huge concern we're convinced that the benefits of this move far outweigh the drawbacks. We wrote a list of pros and cons and the cons far outweighed the pros until at the bottom of the pro list we wrote "God has asked us to do this." The rest of the pros and the cons don't really matter after that. He is faithful, He already has proven so very faithful to us, that we're confident the future of our children will be bright.
