MKs
Again, this article about MKs (missionary kids) is written third-hand, from internet articles, yet the objective is to let MKs know that others are listening.
While being an MK provides life-experiences available nowhere else, the MK life can have negative points, from inconvenient to horrible.
There are small offences that MKs must deal with, and there are terrible things that some MKs have had to live through.
Eric Rose speaking:
I have decided to list their challenges from easier to more difficult.
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'Christianity Today' was a source of much material for this article.
'Go. Serve. Love.' also has fine material to be digested.
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1) All MKs long to feel 'normal', yet often don't. They grow up in different cultures with different sports or eating utensils or clothing,
but when they visit in America, they want to feel like a regular person, and be an American teenager, not a zoo animal.
They just want to be normal.
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2) Many MKs feel lonely, because there is no one of their exact people-group to associate with. MKs experience a type of minority-life.
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3) Many MKs don't have a national attachment. They often don't have a sense of 'home'.
They are legal citizens of a country they only visit occasionally.
To converse with an MK, ask them, "Where have you lived?", not "Where are you from?"
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4) MKs are like military dependents and even refugees, in that they may not feel able to put down roots anywhere, where they can fit in.
But the US military often gives better support options for kids. Organization-size has a lot to do with this.
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5) Many MKs are not interested in doing mission work as adults. They don't see happiness as an option for missionary families.
(Conversely, many MKs are grateful to have been MKs).
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6) The worst thing to talk about, is the sexual abuse of MKs, whether locally or in a boarding school while separated from parents while they are
housed in a residential school, so their parents can go to a place where the kids can't go.
Here is an excerpt, from: What Is a Missionary Kid Worth? - BishopAccountability.org (bishop-accountability.org)
"When Letta Cartlidge got on a plane as a teenager to leave her childhood home, she carried a secret. As the child of missionaries in Nigeria,
she was sexually abused by a teacher at a school for missionary kids.
As the plane rose above Nigeria, she believed she would have to carry that secret forever.
She thought that if she ever reported him—if she even knew how to report her abuser—it would hurt God’s reputation.
We were in a culture where there was a looming God,” she told CT almost 30 years later.
"And that looming God would punish us for disrupting the work of God.”
Cartlidge would, eventually, decide that wasn’t true. As an adult she found the courage to lead fellow former Hillcrest School students
in what she calls an “incredibly discouraging” year-and-a-half effort to bring to light more than 40 allegations of abuse spanning from 1961 to 1993.
The alumni won a small victory in August, when the school board voted unanimously to approve an external investigation."
Eric Rose speaking:
Why would an external investigation need approval?
Is an internal investigation needed if a child is found dead on church property.?
Why then would anyone presume that internal discussions are needed if a child claims sexual abuse at church-school?
Shouldn't medical attention be immediate? What if the rape brings conception? Is the girl considered promiscuous?
Oh, the eternal torment lying in wait for those abusers and those who keep quiet for the sake of abusers!
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Understand that wherever children congregate, for whatever reason, sex-pervert-pedophiles will buzz around, looking for a way to get to the children.
I have read about MK schools, Old West Indian schools, modern residential schools for blind kids, for deaf kids and group homes for troubled kids. They all attract pedophiles. And we know about church sexual abuse, public school sexual abuse, summer camp sexual abuse, etc.
Anywhere there are kids, predators look for an entrance.
Having read about the sexual abuse of kids in all kinds of boarding schools,
I believe that boarding schools are the least safe option for children.
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Also, check out:
What Is a Missionary Kid Worth? | Christianity Today
10 Realities a Missionary Probably Won't Tell You | Go. Serve. Love (goservelove.net)