calling

MK Challenges

The inspiration for this article is from the book, Letters Missionaries Never Write by Frederick L. Kosin. If you can get the book, I recommend it to you.

The letter that intrigued me was from a young adult MK. She talked about many of her feelings and thoughts about moving from her home country to the field, attending boarding school, and returning to her home country for college. I recognized many of the scenarios from my children’s time overseas, and then back in their home culture. At first I planned to share her insights in this newsletter. But instead, I decided to address moms of MKs. My purpose is simple: I want to encourage you to hear your own kids and respond to their particular thoughts about this global nomad life.

Going Out

The first feeling this young woman mentioned was that she had no choice about becoming an MK. She said her parents did a lot right. They discussed the decision carefully, and talked to her and the other children about the place they would go. She was excited at first, but later cried herself to sleep with grief about losing her friends. It became so bad she wished she could die and go to heaven since that would be better. I wonder if we, as parents, ever fully understand how our children, at their ages, experience our responses to the will of God.

Our children don’t have a choice about being MKs, or military brats, or inner city kids, or doctor’s kids. No child chooses their parents’ career. Our MKs are not unusual in that. Even so, we should do everything we can to help our kids have the best life they can within the limits of our calling. We should try to teach them how to get the most out of the life they have been given. But we should not feel guilty that they did not have a choice about the type of life they grow up in.

[Read more…]

Typical? What’s That?

1 Comment

Recently Lori Wilhite wrote an article called, The Typical Pastor’s Wife is Dead. She talks about the ideal of the perfect pastor’s wife. The one who always has it together, never seems to struggle, plays the piano, attends every event, and meets everyone’s expectations. She goes on to describe how she doesn’t measure up to that standard. This image seems outdated in much of today’s Christian world. In fact, there seems to be a new typical.

Of course my thoughts jumped to PWs (as we call them in these letters). It’s my shorthand title for those of us who live and serve outside our home culture.

I remember well our first field, more than 33 years ago. There were two veteran PWs who lived in our apartment building on the grounds of the ministry we served. Now, they were typical PWs in my mind. They cooked only with local ingredients, they were as involved in the work as their husbands, one homeschooled her children, and the other one delivered her baby in a local hospital. In my newbie mind, they seemed like real PWs- whatever that was. I tried hard to come up to their standard, but with two small kids, homeschooling for the first time, never having lived in a developing nation, and fighting shyness, I constantly fell short of my expectations for myself. [Read more…]

Leap of Faith

This month we have a guest writer sharing her story. Shelly Miller tells about her biggest leap of faith and challenges us to take a good look at our lives and see if anything is keeping us from making a fresh leap of faith.

Diane

It must have been at least twenty minutes before my husband and I realized we’d been staring silently at strangers pulling carry-on luggage past us in the terminal. Seated against the wall, coats draped over our laps, we were waiting at the gate for an early morning departure from Dallas, trapped in a torrent of thoughts. While children were flitting through rows of seats to look at airplanes out a nearby wall of windows, we were making mental assessments, replaying the past 48 hours.

“What have we just done?” I said to him with a deadlock of focus on a piece of bubble gum stuck to a pillar.

He shook his head like awakening from a trance.

We were in Dallas at the invitation of my husband’s boss. He assumed we were coming to scout neighborhoods and schools for relocation, but we surprised him with some news after lunch.

We’ve sensed God is telling us this season of leadership in the church planting movement that we love is over. God is calling us to England.

Truthfully, that was the extent of our knowledge; we had no idea what that meant. For the first time in twenty-four years of marriage and ministry together, God was asking us to let go and take a leap of faith before knowing details and outcomes.
[Read more…]

Stay Focused

. . .how easily we can get distracted by the taunts of the critics in our lives. Many things are vying to pull us away from the calling and mission God has given us. The most important thing you can do to overcome criticism is to remain focused on your calling. The enemy’s goal is to distract you, and what better way to get you off track than to cut you down with criticism?

How are you reacting to criticism? Can you shake it off and refocus on “your game,” or do you throw in the towel and give up the match? Are you allowing criticism to distract you from your calling or purpose?

“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

God has gifted and called you for the unique role you play. He does not promise that your journey will be an easy one, and you will likely have your share of critics, but he will equip you as long as you keep your focus on him.

Our Calling

Do you feel called by God to do what you are doing, right now, in the place you are doing it? Most cross cultural workers have some understanding of their calling. But in this edition of Peter’s Wife, I’d like to encourage you and maybe help you understand a little bit more about your calling.

We are among those called to belong to Jesus and to be saints. (Rom. 1:6,7) Thankfully, God empowers us to live a life worthy of our calling: being humble, gentle, patient, bearing with one another, and making every effort to maintain unity. This is our calling as children of God. (Eph. 4:1-3)

So every believer has a call. But most of us living overseas believe we also have a more specific calling to service. And as we all know, serving cross culturally is no easy calling.

[Read more…]