When I was about seventeen years old, I was doing what many
seventeen-year-old Christians do. I was
pondering God’s will for my life but not coming to any conclusions very
quickly. My mother, sharing her heart, said to me, “Cynda, you could do
absolutely anything you want to in life. You’re having so much trouble deciding
that I’m starting to wonder if you are called to be a missionary. Just so you
know. . . I don’t really want you to be a missionary.”
I think many
mothers, even devout Christian mothers, if they were honest as mine, would say
the same.
Mission Inspiration #1 – Decide if God wants your children
involved in missionary work – that you are at least ok with that.
God never
called me to be a missionary. So far,
I’ve considered my life’s calling to be a wife and a mother and to homeschool
my children. Perhaps God will call one of my children to become missionaries. .
. (Reminding myself again of Mission Inspiration #1.) Because I am at least
kind of ok with my children becoming missionaries and totally ok with them
sending their support, missionary studies have always been part of our
homeschooling journey.
Mission Inspiration #2 – Make missionary studies part of your
homeschooling journey.
Missionaries
have some great stories. My husband has read many missionary biographies to the
children. We’ve listened to stories about Hudson Taylor, Adoniram Judson, and
Gladys Alward. We’ve read all about the history of Wycliffe Bible Translators
and Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF). We’ve read about Betty Greene, who
piloted the first missionary aviation flight. These were fun times as a family,
with the children usually begging for just one more chapter to hear the next
exciting part of these missionaries’ lives. This wasn’t doing school, per se,
but to understand the stories the children learned a lot of geography and
history that stuck with them. Of course,
they encountered these heroes of the faith in their regular school work, too.
Over time, I believe they have become just that to my children – heroes with
lots of adventures.
Mission Inspiration #3 – Go camping and be adventurous.
The number
one reason our family has done lots of camping is because it makes vacation
possible for a family of seven living primarily on one income. We can buy a lot
of great school books for the same cost of getting TWO hotel rooms even for a
weekend. Just sayin’.
The children
have learned that living conditions don’t have to be perfect to have a good
time. The thought of being a little hot,
or sleeping on the ground, or eating simply for a few days just really isn’t a
big deal. And, it’s fun to see a new part of the world. We’ve hiked and camped
from Florida to California and many places in between. We have our own
adventure and misadventure stories to tell.
Mission Inspiration #4 – Do stuff. If you run out of stuff do
to do – find stuff to do for others.
We have
never considered ourselves unschoolers, but we do try to leave lots of time for
projects, interests, and helping others. For us, that has meant things like
building a small barn out of pallets, making a zip line to haul wood down from
the hills, building an outside wood-burner, helping neighbors with clean up and
construction projects, and wiring up a house with a grandparent who is also an
electrician.
Little by
little, the children are learning work ethics and valuable skills which could
be used on the mission field.
Mission Inspiration #5 – Enjoy the Joy
The Bible says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my
children walk in truth.”
My seventeen year old son just got back from a short-term
missionary trip to Haiti. It was his second trip. I have had a few people (that
don’t know him very well) ask me if he wanted to go or if my husband and I had
“sent” him. It was definitely that he wanted to go. In fact, he had been saving
money and praying for the opportunity to make another trip.
It got me to thinking about Isaac’s background and how it had
prepared him for the trip. When he heard that they were taking a Missionary
Aviation Flight across Haiti, his face lit up. It seems I only hear the word
“surreal” in sports movies, but it was definitely “surreal” to me that Isaac
was on a MAF flight after reading about it as a child. The team wired several
staff houses and the orphanage at the mission. Isaac had done the same kind of
“stuff” with his Grandpa. They also camped during their stay and enjoyed the
beautiful Caribbean beach nearby.
Now for the disclaimers: I don’t have all the parenting
answers, and I realize things still hang in the balance as far as how the kids
turn out. I can only say that God does have wisdom and I am trying to learn
from Him. I left out the parts where my son forgot his sunglasses, left his
ipod on the beach where it was stolen, and worried his team members when he
wondered from the group at night. He is seventeen and not forty-seven. However, right now, I am hearing that my
children are walking in truth, and I can honestly say, I have no greater joy.
Cynda Moore is a wife, mother, homeschooler and a consultant
with Homeworks Marketing.
