I returned to Germany three weeks ago for the worst of reasons—to speak at the memorial service for my dear friend, Mari Ellen.  I landed in Basel, as I have countless times before, folded into my tiny stick-shift rental car and drove the small, winding roads from Switzerland to Black Forest Academy in homing-pigeon mode, not once wondering where to turn but slammed at every familiar site by pangs of intimate belonging.  (Interesting that “longing” is part of “belonging.”)

It was a bit of a schizophrenic week for me, exhilarated as I was to be back on heart-home soil, but devastated by the circumstances that made my return necessary.  I stayed in Mari Ellen’s apartment, surrounded by memories of the 20-year friendship that had bound us to each other with travel, faith, ministry and growth.  The French expression “I don’t know which foot to dance on” came painfully alive for me on the day of the memorial service, as I walked slowly into the school’s auditorium where I had directed countless concerts and plays…  One “foot” wanted to dance.  The other wished it could drag itself back out of the building, away from the imminent, forever goodbye.  The window-wall on my right was lined with pictures of my too-soon-departed friend, but the spaces around me rang with the remembered energy and life of the hundreds of students who were the focus of my work for all my adult years.  Longings—too many to list—assailed me.

I’m not sure there is another people group on earth that relates as intimately to longing as the Third Culture community does.  It is anchored to our DNA and breathes in our cells.  Those places we’ve loved, the languages we’ve tasted, the remembered agony of imposed goodbyes and mandated transitions.  The savors, smells, sounds, textures and lifestyles of our past hum like static in the background of our present.  Some of us try to silence or ignore the melancholy longings.  Some of us let them drain the color out of the new life we’ve entered.  I’d venture to say that we all, to some degree, carry the blessing and burden of our memories as we dwell between past and future, trying to discern which foot to dance on.

Part of me wants to suggest that it’s okay to dampen the ardor of our longing, that it’s okay to make believe those otheryears never happened.  I’d be lying, of course, for the sake of practicality.  How convenient it would be to see life through a single-universe lens.  But neither the Christian life nor the third-culture life are predicated on convenience.  Their greatest rewards are steeped in careful measure, perspective and precarious balance.

Part of me wants to suggest that it’s okay to dwell in the familiar past, to weigh today down with so much of yesterday’s baggage that we’re able to bring our old life into the new and lose little in transition.  Except for the present.  We lose the promise and abundance of “present” by trying to transpose the past into today.

My time in Germany brought longing into nearly physical focus.  As sure as I am of the “rightness” of my new ministry here in the States, I was intensely reminded of my marrow-deep attachment to that place, those students and that life.  Grief further confused my thinking.  There were moments when I was viscerally certain that I’d made the wrong decision two years ago and that my days here would never matter as much as they had in that context.  An evening with French friends revived my connection with the culture in which I was born and raised.  Oh, the longing for staccato conversations over three-hour meals and that choleric sense-of-humor we Americans can’t emulate.

The conclusion I reached as my plane rose over the patchwork of Alsatian fields on a sunny Monday morning and dragged its shadow over the sleeping village of Blotzheim didn’t temper the yearning growing like feedback in my mind.  But it gave it meaning.  I cannot—I will not—stamp out the longing that connects me to the influences that shaped me.  Losing them would mean losing the rich heritage of my cross-cultural upbringing.  It would one-dimensionalize me…like removing shadow from a painting.  But I won’t allow it to disconnect me from the new life I’m engaged in either.  I can permit the memories to surface without giving them license to deprive the present of its potential and purpose.

So I commit to participate in each today with determination and zeal that balance the longings of Third-Culture-dom.  I acknowledge that it’s okay for me to miss the people and places of my past when those memories gurgle to the surface.  It’s okay for me to savor them again for a moment, then store them—unsealed and still breathing—in a treasured mental space.  But the God who cares for us along every step of our journeys wouldn’t want me to be moving forward while still bound to the past.  He’d want me facing front, bold and trusting, soothed by previous homeness and grateful for that gift.  Revisiting the past is good and healthy.  Dwelling in it is a dangerous proposal.  So I face resolutely forward, eager to discover what today, tomorrow and the day after will hold.  I dance on both feet—buoyed by all I’ve known and lost and determined to discover whatever treasure lies ahead.

I think—I know—Mari Ellen would approve.

I don’t know how to begin.

I wish there were a word to describe the shift of a universe at the exit of a kindred soul.

I just went diving into my paper-recycle bag, frantic to find the card I received two days ago, blinded by tears I can’t seem to stem. And there it is, an ode to donuts on the cover and a sweet note inside ended by the usual all-caps “LOVE YOU!”

My friend Mari Ellen Reeser joined Jesus for a heavenly Easter celebration yesterday afternoon. It was utterly unexpected. And I am devastated by this loss. My fellow MK, my partner in ministry, my accomplice in travel, my video-watching and Caesar-salad-eating companion, my hiking buddy whose commitment to missionaries’ kids and BFA mirrored mine… The woman who for 20 years inhabited my daily life is gone. I am grateful—so grateful–that I was gifted with so lengthy and intertwined a friendship. We were both keenly aware of how rare those are in the life of an MK.

It’s her laughter that echoes in my mind on this day in which memories, joy and tears have intimately mingled. That unrestrained, larger-than-life laugh that would get us in trouble as we sat at school in her office or mine. How many times did someone pointedly shut their own door to try to dampen the resonance of her chuckle? Fruitless endeavor – it could pierce walls. There was something gratifying about that laugh. It made me feel like a prime-time comedian, though I know my material was late-night-mediocre at best.

On the first performance of each play I directed, I gave Mari Ellen a free, front-row seat. My generosity was self-serving—I needed her to get the laughing started. She never—NEVER—failed me in that role!

Mari Ellen learned the art of (literally) hugging trees from her sweet father, a lover of nature. We were on one of our many walks one day, just above the school, when she stopped and burst into tears. A tall, gnarled tree had reminded her of the man she still called “Daddy”—she went over and hugged it. And she held on for a while.

One of the greatest joys of her life, I think, was having her mom visit for two months this winter. She was so proud of her for making the long trip to Europe. She told me on the day after her mom’s departure that time had flown by and that she missed her already.

Paris, Cinque Terre, Nurnberg, Heidelberg, Nice, Cannes, Freiburg, Basel, Interlaken (for the free Ketchup packets at McDonald’s…not kidding), Venice, Milan and nearly every small town in Alsace… Her love of exploration and my love of driving were a pretty unbeatable combo. And when we weren’t driving, we were hiking in the Black Forest. I don’t think there’s a path in the Kandern area that hasn’t seen our plodding and heard our retelling of life’s majorest and minorest events. During my last year in Germany, she found us a quaint chalet in Switzerland and dragged me up the steepest mountainside for the view and Ovomaltine at the top. She nearly lost me in the first quarter of the hike. I would have so gladly turned back, as my calves were begging me to do. But she kept on prodding me along. She was the best of prodders. Oh, and the view from the top…

Mari Ellen and I were inseparable at BFA. Every banquet, every concert, every staff conference… Where one was, the other was too, most of the time. We loved the Colmar Christmas market, The West Wing and Funf Shilling’s mixed salad. (Her last card to me reads in part: “I miss our rides across the countryside to Funf Shilling.  I miss laughing with you!”)  She laughed at my rough German and I laughed at her slow processing. Every phone call was followed by her patented “second call”—a callback to deal with the items she’d forgotten to discuss before hanging up the first time.

Most of all, Mari Ellen loved people. She loved the students of BFA in a life-defining way. There was no pain so deep that she wouldn’t dive in with them to listen and comfort. Counseling was a calling she received later in life, one so strong that she left BFA for two years to immerse herself in studies, returning to the school emboldened by the knowledge she’d acquired and committed to making a difference in every way she could. I saw her begin to advocate for others in a way she never had before, her dedication to the hurting surpassing her fear of conflict. She was courageous and relentless in her defense of the voiceless. On more than one occasion, I was one of those.

When I decided to leave BFA in 2010, she started her grieving process early. Those last few months for her were the embodiment of one of my favorite quotes: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” She did plenty of both, and my imminent departure fueled a heightened understanding of the “limitedness” of time. (She’d like that word…)

MKs aren’t supposed to have long-lasting friendships. Our world spins too fast for anyone to hang on for long. But Mari Ellen and I had 20 years. That’s an astounding number on Planet MK. I’m grateful for so much more than the time we had. I’m grateful for the steadfastness of her love and the authenticity of her spirit.

A couple years back, she sat on my couch in tears, telling me about something that was painful to her. In typical “me” fashion, I started to enumerate steps she could take to resolve the problem. She looked at me and said, “I’m not ready for that yet. Can’t I just be sad for a while?” I must admit that I didn’t understand that statement then. I’m coming closer to doing so today.

In recent years, Mari Ellen had started talking about Jesus a lot. Not God. Not “the Lord.” Jesus.  She savored that name.  It’s as if her faith had taken a more intimate turn, a more personal meaning.  She loved Him—she loveS Him—so much. He was the central motivation and direction of her life. You couldn’t know her without hearing about Him.

I’m so glad I sent flowers to her hospital last week. I’m so glad she received my package of zebra-print socks and a book she told me we’d discuss when I called her on Easter evening. I’m so glad we were able to have one final conversation before she entered the hospital for what was supposed to be a fairly routine hip-replacement surgery. I’m sorry our call got interrupted by her doorbell before I was able to pray for her… Who could have foreseen the embolism that ended her life?  Most of all, I’m thrilled that she got to spend Easter with her resurrected Jesus in her own resurrected body, free of pain and unhobbled by the burdens of life.

My grief comes in waves. Waking up this morning was brutal, but nowhere near as painful as I’m sure it was for her family. Please pray for them—for her mom, her two siblings and her nieces and nephews. She loved them all so much and they loved her in return. Pray for the students on whose lives she has left her unique and transformative mark. Pray for the school as it prepares to welcome its students home from break and share this time of grieving with them. Mari Ellen was a safe place. A safe and healing place. There are few of those in this world.

As I’ve muddled through the grief today and tried to commit to memory the myriad images of 20 years in my mind, I’ve had to pause and consider how I can live to honor the lessons she taught me by simply living alongside me. It’s simple, really:

Care for the helpless.
Have faith for the hopeless.
Love without reservation.
Laugh with abandon.
And say the name of Jesus as often and fervently as you can.

“Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”  The tears are flowing. And I can hear her laughter through them.

May I introduce you to a friend of mine?  Eva is a beautiful young woman who grew up in Kyrgyzstan.  When she was 9, her family moved to Germany, then made a major (and permanent) move to the States a year later.  Today, Eva is a bright and vivacious 6^th grader with a keen mind and a luminous spirit.

I was hanging out in her room last night when she handed me a thin yellow notebook with flowers on the front cover.  I was expecting to find drawings inside, as she’s an accomplished artist.  Instead, I found penciled words that flowed from page to page on tides of loss, anger and sorrow.  With her permission, I’d like to share just a few lines from her notebook with you.  Her voice expresses simply the emotions she felt as her roots were torn up from her beloved Kyrkyzstan.

 ~~~~~~~

It started

out

as a

rumor

around the

house

that we

would leave

forever

and

ever

and

never

come back.

Then one morning

they said:

“We’re moving…”

I remember

feeling

like they

wouldn’t

listen,

like they didn’t

care.

They said

this was

God’s decision

not theirs.

It was

God who

made me

move.

God who

made me

suffer

who made

me cry.

It was

God’s fault.

It was God

who did it.

Now

all the things

I love

have gone.

Now

I

am

different

sad

and

cold.

~~~~~~~

In a little over a week, I’ll be heading back to Moody for an evening with some of the MKs who study there.  Instead of my usual material, they asked me to address a topic I was glad to cover: how growing up in ministry can impact a person’s faith.

In Eva’s case, her faith was wounded by anger.  She blamed God for tearing her away from the Kyrgyz universe that had been home to her since infancy.  She isn’t alone in that response to loss.  As I wade through the surveys over a hundred adult MKs filled out earlier this year, I’m seeing multiple themes emerge.  Some of the respondents share Eva’s anger at God about the losses inherent in mobility on the mission field.  Others direct their anger at their parents for caring more about the unsaved than about them.  Yet others voice cynicism about a faith they consider hypocritical, having witnessed disturbing contradictions between their family’s private and public faces.

In many cases, though, the MKs write of a strengthened faith, one that carried them and still carries them through life’s greatest challenges.  Some who have become missionaries in their own right are eager to share with their children the wonders of growing up between worlds.

The stories that affect me most deeply are of adult MKs who have completely turned their backs on faith, religion, ministry, their own families and their former lives.  Whether their abandonment of faith is a result of survival instincts, neglect, anger, or disillusion, it carries with it the burden of alienation and the blessing of a simplified spiritual worldview.  In many instances, though I grieve for the decision they’ve made, I can understand the circumstances that pushed them to such harsh extremes.

So…if you’re an MK of any age, here’s where you come in.  I would LOVE to know how growing up MK affected you and your faith.  If you’d like to briefly share, please, please do!  And do so by April 10^th, so I can include your comments in what I share at Moody.  You can either post your feedback right here or on my Facebook wall (under the link to this blog).  If you choose that option, I’ll cut/paste your comments here myself.  If you’d rather remain anonymous, feel free to send me a personal message, and I’ll happily use your words without stating your name.

Eva’s life is back on track—she’s found friendships in this country and a renewed faith in recent months.  But her journey may not be yours, and I want to be sure your story is heard too.  Whatever it is, it is worth retelling.

I was having a lightning-fast lunch on the grass of Wheaton College’s quad last week when a friend reminded me about gratitude.  It was a timely knock upside the head, as I’ve allowed the decisions I’m having to make these days to rob me of both serenity and sleep, and the gratitude that has so often shifted my attitude has taken a back-seat to self-doubt, restlessness and outright fear.

My friend’s encouragement actually reminded me of a post I wrote four years ago, in which I mostly covered what gratitude isn’t.

I received a note from Allyn, that year, a reader who had noticed the rather heavy-handed emphasis I put on gratitude.  With her permission, I’d like to pass on a portion of her email:

“I want to be like you…to be thankful.  But my husband of 9 years just left me, mostly because of MK stuff I’m still dragging around.  His parting shot was threatening to get custody of our two kids, so I’m not doing too well at being thankful for this situation…”

Shortly after my cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2008, my mom printed out an article by a well-known Christian writer who went through a battle against prostate cancer.  He suggested several steps for cancer fighters, one of which was being grateful for the disease.  I respect this man’s writing tremendously and the impact he’s had on the Christian world, but I vehemently disagree with his statement about gratitude.  And I hope—truly hope—that I haven’t inadvertently repeated it by being too vague in my writing on the subject.

When I write of gratitude, it isn’t in the sense that I am grateful for the disappointments, challenges and tragedies of my life.  I can no more be grateful for my cancer than Allyn can be for her divorce or victims of Japan’s tsunami for their trauma.  Implying that God expects us, as believers, to be grateful FOR THE PAIN in our lives, in my opinion, would border on blasphemy.  It would be akin to counseling a rape victim to be thankful for her attack or a molested child for his/her aggressor’s actions.

No—I believe that (with God’s indispensable help) we can be thankful IN SPITE OF OUR PAIN.  Not for it.  But that gratitude sometimes will have to wait until a certain amount of healing has had time to occur. My life has been, from earliest childhood, a collage of injuries and assaults that happened on the deepest of levels.  The wounds were undeserved and unvindicated, and the resulting scars were jagged and crippling.  Looking back on the child I was, I can’t fathom telling her to “buck up and be thankful.”  In the fog of depression that plagued me from my youngest age until my mid-twenties, I didn’t possess the wherewithal to be optimistic or forward-looking—I was trapped in a miasma of so much helplessness and hopelessness that I was incapable of any form of genuine joy.

It took healing to bring me to the point where I could look beyond the pain and find reasons to be grateful in spite of it.  So my response to Allyn when she wrote was not to try harder.  It was to seek healing first—to seek it assiduously and relentlessly, which often requires wading through the pain for a while.  The problem is that the church tends to judge those who aren’t capable of being grateful.  We need to promote healing, not layer shame on top of woundedness.  But we’re not very good at that yet.

Am I grateful for the various traumas of my youth?  How can I be?  They handicapped and bound me and very nearly robbed me of my life.  I would never—never—suggest that God wanted me to suffer as I did, which means He isn’t the person to “thank” for that pain either.  It wasn’t His doing.  He didn’t sit on His throne, point a finger at the frail child that I was, and say, “Let me see…  I think this handful of horrible things will teach her a couple of important lessons.”  It might be a question of semantics and it may be a question of theology, but I cannot believe that the God who said “Let the little children come unto me” would afflict them with mortal diseases and attacks on their innocence.  There’s no denying we live in a fallen world where terrible things happen, and I haven’t been spared from that–none of us are.

What I do know and what I do praise God for is that He saw my pain before it even happened (indeed, He felt it!) and because of His redemptive goodness set in motion the influences and realizations that would allow some good to come from the horror.  It is for that good that I am grateful—because that wounded child can now recognize the walking-wounded and minister to them, because of the healing that gave my scars purpose, because of the joy that thumbs its nose at evil’s best attempts to permanently damage me…

If I have at any point implied in my writing that we must all thank God for the devastation that ravages our lives, I apologize.  Sometimes the best we can do is trudge through the pain with our eyes on a God who weeps with us –and with the faith that we will eventually be able to see how He has carried us and blessed us IN SPITE OF the humanity-inflicted wounds from which we suffer.

—See related article, “Centered Affliction,” here.

There’s a French expression that doesn’t quite translate into English: “like a hair on soup.”  You’re having coffee in Starbucks and enjoying the alone-time when someone you vaguely know intrudes on your peace and quiet…like a hair on soup.  That’s the gist of it.

One week ago, while on a short trip to visit supporters, meet with MKs and witness the marriage of a precious former student (above), I stood in a wedding reception feeling very much like a graying strand of hair floating on a bowl of social soup.

Actually, I wasn’t alone.  I was attending Maggie’s nuptials with my designated “plus one,” that tag-along friend who lends conversation to awkward silence and offers companionship to alone-in-a-crowd symptoms like cold sweat, a frozen smile and fidgety hands.  At this particular wedding, sadly, my “plus one” was my cell phone.  While jovial throngs of strangers crowded around lavish catering tables and yelled over the sound of an 80s-reminiscent wedding band, my “plus one” and I huddled in a dark corner by the gift table and engaged in a few rousing games of Solitaire.  With the wedding party out with a photographer, I knew not a soul in the madding crowd.

When Solitaire lost its appeal and my Words with Friends competitors failed to respond to my literary gauntlets, I found myself feeling more single than I have in a very long time.  I was all dressed up, sporting four-inch wedges…and hiding in the shadows cast by an overflowing gift table.  It wasn’t a woe is me moment.  It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable moment either.  It was one of those very ripe moments when wedded bliss and relational independence (a euphemism for unweddedness) merge into philosophical musings.

I am a single woman.  It’s not an affliction and it certainly isn’t a curse.  It’s a relational status, one that seems to cause a bit of discomfort among married peers who wonder whether condolences or congratulations are in order.  It’s hard for anyone to know how to respond to singles when there are such broad differences among us.  Stereotypes pigeonhole us into manageable sameness, but we’re as diverse as the gift-wrapping on a table full of wedding presents.

I spend a lot of time talking with young women about the lives they dream for themselves.  The conversations invariably turn to marriage and motherhood, aspirations that seem to come built-in to the identity of a majority of growing girls.  Some would tell you it’s society that imposes the yearnings.  I believe they’re hardwired into our souls by the Creator who designed us for relationship and initiated the first marriage by creating Adam and Eve of and for each other.  The problem is that sin and society have evolved in the millennia since Eden.  Eve didn’t have to read self-help books, hone her small-talk skills or photoshop her eHarmony profile pics.  When she breathed her first breath, she found one man before her—one good and God-fashioned man.  He wanted no one but her and she wanted no one but him.  And both were initially sinless.  How simple.

The greatest inhibitor of marriage today is sin.  Don’t get me wrong—I am NOT saying that being single is a sinful state.  Some of the most admirable and godly women I know are unmarried, and most of them are thriving (God doesn’t diminish our potential to live a full life and influence our world because we are unwedded!).  What I’m trying to say without offending or oversimplifying is that sin has perverted our relational universe.

• Sin has made both men and women prone to relationship-ending flaws.
• Sin has altered the check-lists we keep for prospective spouses (kindness and godliness have slid to the bottom of lists where sex-appeal, wealth or notoriety now reign supreme).
• Sin has eviscerated marriages that were initially God-centered and good, causing cynicism about an institution that at its root is noble and rewarding.
• Sin has caused society to judge and diminish those whose relational status is deemed pitiful or incomplete.
• Lastly—and perhaps most importantly for young people with matrimonial aspirations—sin has dramatically and tragically limited the number of Christ-believing men (and women) available for marriage.

When a young lady tells me how committed she is to finding a man who is devoted to Christ and a pursuit of righteousness, I gently point out that her high standards may also be a commitment to singleness.  If she truly desires to marry without compromising essential values, she just may not find the man who “fits the bill.”  In the Christian world, it seems that deeply spiritual single females outnumber similarly-minded single males nearly two to one.  There’s no arguing with that math.

Adding to the lopsided playing field is the Biblical gender-role paradigm that makes men the pursuers and women the…wait-and-hopers.  If a single man has the desire to be married, he starts shopping around until he finds the woman who matches his ideals and proposes to her.  If a single woman has the desire to be married, she must somehow let men know that she’s available, then wait and hope that some bachelor who isn’t too flawed will actually ask her on a date, then pray that he likes her enough to pursue a relationship that may culminate in a slow walk down a petal-dusted aisle.   She has nearly no control over the mechanics of courtship.  Some would suggest we need to alter the paradigms we adhere to in order to allow women to take the lead in mining for diamonds.  I’m not sure I agree with that, though I understand the impulse.  The ability to actively shape one’s relational future in our culture does generally belong to the male party…and we’ve already established the scarcity of willing and qualified Men of God.

So how do single women respond to being unmarried?  Some thrive, some thrive-and-yearn, some just yearn, and some despair.  It would be a mistake to generalize all singles as being incomplete, unhappy or bitter.  In my case, I am joyful, engaged in vital work and taking full advantage of the freedoms and bonuses of living unattached.  I am also intimately aware that there is a marrow-deep longing in me for a relationship that transcends anything that is possible in the realm of singleness.

To be completely honest, I am equally aware that going from thriving-single to married would require some sacrifices and concessions I’d find difficult to make.  But that core-level yearning outweighs the hesitation.  I’ve had dear friends try to talk me out of the longings, explaining that they’re manufactured by societal expectations, that they’ll fade when my hormones die down (!), or that men are mostly jerks, so who needs them anyway.  I’ve seen friends decide they hate the thought of marriage because it makes it easier to live without it.  But I’m not willing to sacrifice the desire for dual-oneness placed in me by God for the sake of practicality.  I believe that stifling the longing in that deeply feminine part of my being would deaden all the other attributes that reside in that same place of tender womanness: nurture, intimacy, sensitivity, compassion, empathy…  I’m not ready to part with those in order to live longing-free.  But I am prepared to see those longings unmet in this life.

For a few years, I toyed with the idea of being “called to singleness.”  It sounded noble and purposeful.  An irrefutable response to having been overlooked in those marriageable years when single men, bursting with lionesque pursue-and-conquer élans, turned bride-baiting into something akin to target practice.

I know—I know—that I’m stepping into sensitive territory, so please read the following with my good intentions in mind!  I believe it is wrong to assume that ALL single women are “called” to singleness.  That simply isn’t true.  Though I’ve known some single women who truly do feel that being unmarried was God’s expectation and plan for them, I know an awful lot of others who, faced with no matrimonial options, tried to mitigate the emotional toll of their aloneness by naming it a Calling.  A woman who feels that no man will ever love her or that she is unworthy of affection may square her shoulders and declare she wasn’t destined for marriage in the first place.  And who could blame her?  By shifting the burden from her perceived inadequacy to God’s demand on her life, her singleness isn’t her failure to attract a husband anymore, it’s a higher, nobler Calling!

Again, some women truly are called to singleness, but at the risk of causing controversy, I’d suggest that many of those who claim that mantle are doing so to lessen the stigma of being found (in the world’s eyes) unwanted or unworthy.

There is so much—so much—more to be written on this topic.  “Singleness in ministry” is something I might tackle in the future…along with a litany of debunkable assumptions about unmarried women.  But I’ve gone on long enough this time!  In closing, may I offer a handful of practical suggestions for those courageous readers who have made it this far?

1. Don’t assume that all singles are like-minded.  Again—some thrive, some thrive-and-yearn, some just yearn, and some despair.  Before arranging blind dates or making light of the situation, you may want to do some gentle probing.
2. A single person is a “social unit” in the same way that a couple forms a “social unit.”  You wouldn’t normally force two unrelated couples to share a hotel room at a conference.  Yet it’s systematically expected of singles.  Forward-thinking organizations should budget in such a way that singles who desire private accommodations can have them at the same cost as couples who’d rather not room with strangers.
3. Don’t view singleness as a failure or loss.  Remember the mathematical and moral discrepancies in the marriageable segment of our society, allow for individual choices and honor the role of Divine Calling.
4. If you see a single woman in four-inch heels standing by the gift table at a wedding reception playing games on her cell-phone, avoid references to hairs floating on soup.

 (See the end of the post for news on Brian’s disappearance.)

I’ve been home-shopping.  Not apartment-shopping.  Home-shopping.  As in “I own this place.”  After 19 years throwing money out the window every month by renting an apartment in Germany, I figure now is as good a time as any to convert my lifelong savings (gulp) into a down-payment and buy myself a little piece of Wheaton—in condo form.  With exorbitant rent rates in this area, it’s really the only logical choice…

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t lost any sleep over it.  The MK in me panics at the concept of so much indebted stability.  The spendthrift in me worries about investing so much in a market that is still unstable.  And the single-girl in me wonders what I’ll do with my square-feet of suburban real estate when George decides to marry me and move me to his mansion in Italy.  (See video below for my “Stalking George Clooney” trip to Lake Como last summer.)

Making the whole process a lot less daunting is an angel masquerading as a real-estate agent named Sharon.  She has guided my search with expertise and kindness, and has never, to my knowledge, rolled her eyes at my indecisiveness.  Not so much indecisiveness as standards, I like to tell myself.  The kind my mom would qualify as “champagne taste on a beer budget.”  You see, the gulf between my wish list and my wealth is about as minor as the Grand Canyon.  And my homeowner aspirations are about as modest as Oprah’s shoe closet.  Oh, I’m not looking to buy the Taj Mahal.  But I’d really like to purchase something that meets my needs without requiring that I hire local inmates to serve their community service hours rehabbing my diamond-in-the-rough.

At present, I have visited every last condo in my price range in Wheaton and Winfield, plus a few in surrounding towns.  And though I dream of entering a place and having the kind of “Aha” moment that would make the Second Coming look like a blip in eternity’s timeline, I’m afraid it isn’t in the cards for me.

Still, as I consider printing up a bunch of “I’m a nice girl wanting to live in your neighborhood…care to sell?” pamphlets and dropping them in mailboxes, I also find myself clinging white-knuckled to those “extras” that are far from necessary for existence in this culture.  Do I need 1 1/2 baths?  No.  I’ve survived with only one for 21 years.  Do I need an office?  Of course not.  I’ve been sitting on my couch with my laptop for over two decades.  Do I need a convection oven?  Uh.  Yes.  This is where Sharon would say, in jest, “The day we find a condo with a convection oven, we’re buying it on the spot—even if it’s rat-infested and full of black mold!”  I don’t really NEED one.  And living in Germany, I never HAD one.  [Insert whiny voice]  It’s just that…

I was locked in I-will-not-concede mode last week when I drove to a friend’s house for dinner.  I pulled into the parking lot outside her apartment and saw what looked like a mountain of debris piled five feet high on the asphalt outside the building.  A man sat on an upside-down paint bucket in the middle of the mess, pulling items out of the box at his feet, while two children rummaged through the mounds of detritus around him.  Vira explained to me that the gentleman had been evicted that day.  Earlier in the afternoon, a crew of four men had used a master key to enter his apartment and had thrown every last item that belonged to him into the parking lot.  The police had given him until 6 pm to load what he wanted to save into his car and leave.

When we returned from dinner a couple hours later, the man was still there.  The doors of his car were open, and the belongings he’d retrieved from the pile were crowded into the trunk and back seat.  What remained on the asphalt, he simply could not keep.  A dump truck would remove it in the morning.  This man was officially homeless, with no one around to take him in.  His entire world was wedged between the floor and ceiling of his rusty old car.

I had a fairly major attack of the conscience as I drove home that night.  How could I be so fixated on baths and ovens when others like this man can neither rent nor buy?  I spent 18 of my 19 years in Germany in a small, one-bedroom apartment with windows that served as wind-tunnels (when closed!) and threadbare carpeting that hadn’t been changed in 25 years.  There was mold in most corners and buckled, gouged linoleum where the carpet ended.  And I was happy.  Blissfully so.

I think I may have caught a touch of materialism as I moved from a missionary community to the Chicago suburbs.  If only subconsciously, my change of location made me less okay with the make-do attitude that for so many years, and without flinching, offered a fold-out couch in the living room to my guests and an extra blanket for those closed-windows drafts.

I am so thankful for the parking lot wakeup call.  I don’t want to embrace the upwardly-mobile philosophy of western culture to the detriment of a presently-grateful attitude.  There are blessings crammed into my life as tightly as the homeless man’s belongings in his car.  I don’t need much more than those.  I have preached gratefulness to my students all my adult life, but in the process of house-shopping, I may have lost sight of that True North.

So this is me making the conscious choice to return to the mindset that saw me through health crises, losses and traumas.  Surely it will see me through this home-hunting too!  And if it alters the way I search, all the better.  I’d rather be grateful in grandma’s floral wallpaper than comfortable in Pottery Barn’s finest.

***********

On February 13th, a dear former student by the name of Brian Shipley disappeared from Newton, PA after leaving an alarming note on Facebook.  Police were immediately alerted and a massive search was launched.  As you can imagine, in a community as tight-knit as Black Forest Academy, the news of Brian’s disappearance caused ripple effects of shock and concern.  One of his friends asked me to put together a short video to let Brian know that he is loved and cared for…and to invite him home.  It’s below.  A love like these students have demonstrated for their comrade is both moving and powerful.  I wanted you to see it here in the hope that it will prompt you to pray for this special young man.

[Don't worry--this isn't a Whitney Houston tribute...]

It was 1988.  I was house-sitting with my college roommate somewhere in Wheaton.  She’d gone off to class, and I was eating cereal with an eye on the television.  MTV was fairly new, in those days, and videos still held a fascination to me.  This many years later, I remember the moment I was introduced to music royalty.  No fast-paced cuts and moving cameras.  Just a luminous face, a powerful spirit and a miraculous voice, live in concert.  Whitney Houston dressed in jeans, a leather jacket and boots.  Alone on a stage.  The song was “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” a sappy romantic ballad with predictable rhymes and iffy morals.  But in Whitney’s hands, it became a gripping, moving, timeless anthem.

I was as stunned as everyone else by yesterday’s news of her passing.  But I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon of those in the blogosphere who are taking this moment to decry the consequences of drug abuse and poor choices—though their points are well-taken.  No, what touched me this morning as I shuffled to my couch for a quick pre-church update on Whitney’s tragic death was the pictures of makeshift memorials going up in her honor from the Beverly Hilton in California to her New Hope Baptist Church in New Jersey.  Such displays are a common phenomenon after the death of celebrities, but the mounds of flowers and hand-written notes struck me in a fresh way.

Flash forward from 1988 to 2005.  I’ve just arrived at my father’s bedside in a Canadian hospital.  He has been in a coma for 24 hours.  His breathing is labored.  His skin impossibly pale.  By all medical measurements, he is brain-dead, but the nurse tells me she thinks he can somehow still hear me.  The single tear that fell from his eye when I arrived makes me believe it’s true.  So when my mom leaves the room briefly, I sit on the edge of the bed and lean in, scanning a face that chemo and a brain hemorrhage have already transformed into someone I barely recognize.  I stroke his hand and search for words, horrified by the end I know is breaths away.  “I love you, Ner,” I whisper, broken, calling him by the only name I’ve used for him in twenty years.

Those words, in a sense, were my own “makeshift memorial,” my futile attempt to say posthumously what I should have said when he was still alive.  We were never a very verbal family, you see.  “I love you”’s were scarce, possibly because of my parents’ stoic upbringings.  So on that evening, though I hoped my dad knew how much I loved him from the myriad ways we’d spent time and laughed together, I was afraid the words that would have cemented that understanding may have come too late.  It’s the memory of the ways I showed him my love that comfort me as I cling to that nurse’s assertion that somehow, in some mysterious way, he was able to hear me on his final day.

I don’t mean to be maudlin.  When I think of my dad, it is with overwhelming gratitude that our once-rocky relationship had healed in the years before his passing.  I miss so much about him—I miss him every day.  But I wish I had spoken more and trusted less to actions.

Fast-forward to 2009.  It’s the Christmas after my dual cancer battle and I’m packing away the ornaments and trinkets of the season.  Right before I seal the last box, I yield to a semi-morbid impulse.  I write a quick note to my mom, telling her that I’m fully expecting to be alive to open the box next Christmas, but if I’m not…  And I write the words “I love you” in bold print, then fold the note and tuck it inside the cardboard.  Had the cancer come back to kill me that year, and had my mom found the note when she went through my things, there’s a good chance she too would have considered it to have come a little too late!  I’m pleased to report that we’ve gotten much better at saying “I love you” since then…

So this is my encouragement to all of us, as memorials to Whitney Houston go up around the country—the messy, makeshift expressions of a love she can no longer see.  Instead of merely hoping that actions and attitudes will convey our love to those we hold most dear, let us make our feelings clear.  Let us seek reconciliation without delay and strive for understanding as if the end were near.  Let us show those we love how important they are to us by putting our sentiments, commitment and devotion into words they can’t misunderstand, and while they can still hear them.  Let us make of our love, whatever its nature, a living, breathing, and spoken force before it’s too late.  Not sometime.  Not tomorrow.

Now would be good.

**********

One last song by Whitney, this one recorded in 2009.  We don’t know what was going on in her mind–even less what was happening in her soul during her final days.  This song and the sincerity of her interpretation give me hope that she may be waiting for us in Heaven when we get there.

I’m a student again.  When I finished my course work at Wheaton back in 1989, I swore (SWORE!) that I would never enter a classroom again.

Imagine my surprise, last month, to find myself preparing for my first class in over 20 years.  I walked with feigned confidence into the classroom holding 30 or so young grad students.  They mostly knew each other from previous courses together, so no one paid much attention to the much-older woman fielding hot-flashes in the back corner.  Right up until my pen flicked out of my tense fingers and skittered loudly two desks down before falling to the floor.  It happened twice.  And every time a younger classmate returned the pen to me with something that looked like condolences on his face.

For two hours every Thursday, I return to the Billy Graham Center for an interactive class on “Care and Counsel in Ministry” that has sharpened my thinking and acutized my calling.  “Acutized” is a made-up word.  I can do that now that I’m involved in higher education!

My student career hasn’t always been as fulfilling or entertaining as it is today.  If you know me well or have heard me speak on MK topics, you’re aware that my introduction to learning was rocky.  I was insecure and fragile when I began first grade in the French school system—a system North Americans would rightfully call abusive.  I have a few good memories of those initial years of schooling: the substitute teacher who brought his guitar to class and sang us French folk classics by Yves Duteil or George Brassens.  Watching tadpoles turn into frogs in jars at the front of the class.  Going on a field trip to the nearby woods to pick Lilies of the Valley for the first of May.  Traveling to Paris in 7^th grade to watch the very first version of Les Misérables—minus the elaborate sets, rotating stage and expanded storyline of today’s Broadway show.  Playing hop-scotch.  “Un-deux-trois soleil.”  Jump-rope.  And a game in which a person would perform elaborate tricks with an elastic circle stretched between two friends.

But the bad memories—they far outnumber the good.  Teachers who would pull my ear until the earlobe bled.  Who would tell me how stupid I was and that I’d never amount to anything.  Who pinched a nerve in my shoulder that would make my arm go numb.  Who stood me at the front of the class with a dunce cap on my head and instructed my peers to mock me into…what?  Into brilliance?  The French system believed then (and still somewhat does now) that humiliation and pain are a catalyst for achievement.  I beg to differ.

Today, as I speak about my experiences in various venues, I’m frequently asked why I didn’t tell my parents about the physical and verbal abuse I suffered at the hands of educators who were supposed to be benevolent and trustworthy.  My answer is simple: because I thought it was normal.  Though the verbal taunts may have been more easily aimed at the shy “Américaine” in the back row, no one in my class was spared.  We were all treated like stupid nuisances who served no other purpose than to exasperate impatient teachers.  It was normal.  Just like being chased back and forth down the street, terrified and sobbing, by older boys on bicycles was normal.  Being propositioned by old, foul-breathed men was normal.

Normal was frightening and maiming, but not worth reporting.

I wonder how many other MKs, even today, are going through experiences at school and at home that feel utterly wrong but are considered normal—because they are so common.  I’ve seen it in my former students at BFA.  Girls who were raised in Muslim countries where a woman highest calling is to be a man’s possession.  Boys raised in neighborhoods where group violence promised inclusion.  Children whose young lives were bruised or branded by aberrations they assumed were “normal” because they were so widespread and tolerated.

If you’re an MK who has endured something that has hurt you in any way, I urge you to speak of it to someone today.  Even if you get the impression that everyone around you suffered the same fate.  Nazi Germany proved that an injustice’s scale doesn’t lessen its wrongness or its impact on individuals.  If you have experienced physical, emotional or sexual harm without speaking of it to anyone, please—please—find someone you trust and speak your story.  There is a freedom you can’t imagine that comes from revealing past grievances, no matter how distant they are.  It will release your present from the anchors of your past.  And there is healing to be found by exploring the painful memories and their scars with someone who can help you toward wholeness.  (If you have no one to speak to, please let me know so I can help you to find someone who will listen and help…  My email.)

And missionary parents—as you seek to know and understand your children, I urge you to realize that some of what is “normal” in your part of the world might leave indelible marks on your children’s lives.  It may be so ordinary that your children don’t want to bother you with admissions of pain.  I’ve seen enough MKs devastated by “normal” that I urge you to ask pointed and persistent questions of your children.  Give them the opportunity I never got to voice the reality of their daily challenges and struggles.  Remove from their shoulders the burden of whitewashing their experiences in order to make your lives easier.  Nurture a relationship in which honest communication trumps blissful ignorance.  And if you perceive that something isn’t right, even without an admission on their part, take measures to find out what might be causing the changes you see in them.  Pursue and address it.  Let your children know that if “normal” hurts them, you’ll do all you can to spare them from further harm.  Make sure they understand that nothing is more important to you than their safety and welfare.

When I first arrived at BFA, fresh out of the French school system, I doubted that any of my teachers were as kind as they appeared to be.  I lived with the expectation that adults in authority would invariably cause me to suffer.  It took years to prove the assumption wrong.  I’m still working on some of the other faulty conclusions I drew from growing up in a much different culture.  But now, as I head to class at the Billy Graham Center each Thursday, it’s with two unflagging certainties:

1. How blessed I am to be involved in a ministry that promotes understanding, prevention and healing.
2. How glad I am that in the context of Wheaton College, my earlobes are safe, my arm is un-numb and there isn’t a dunce cap to be found.

To donate to this important ministry, please click HERE.

Make sure you specify that it’s for Michele Phoenix’s ministry.

Have you ever sat in church listening to that traditional Opening Illustration and wondered how the pastor ever found a story to support an obscure theological point?  I think there must be a website somewhere in which Shepherds of the Flock can enter “Sports metaphor that illustrates transubstantiation” and poof!  Up come fifteen stories about synchronized swimming to entertain the congregation during those five all-important connect-with-the-parishioners minutes at the beginning of a sermon.

Well—I’m doing things a little differently today.  I’m giving you the illustration and hoping you’ll match it with a meaningful parallel to our Journey through Life.  You’ll get a chance to contribute it below!

The year was 1993.  Or maybe it was 1994.  I was a young “teacher.”  I use the quotes because, though I stood in front of multiple classrooms every day and tried to impart some semblance of knowledge to the teenagers in my care, I had neither the credentials nor the training the role required.  But I was full of newbie enthusiasm and creative ideas, most of which might have made the principle wince had he gotten wind of what was going on in Miss Phiphi’s classroom.

Looking back, I’m not sure if it was an English class or a Drama class that prompted me to assign a timed and videoed speech in which the students would use props to instruct their classmates.  Eager for the young orators to give free reign to their imaginations, I had left topics and content entirely up to them.

Enter Elizabeth.  Or maybe Mary.  She thought it might be interesting to demonstrate her pie-making expertise during the 10 minute segment allotted to her presentation.  I’ve made a lot of pies in my life.  I can assure you they take more than 10 minutes to make!  But Elizabeth or Mary (Elizamary?) was so excited about her little speech that I didn’t have the heart to suggest another topic.

I stood behind the old-school VHS video camera toward the back of the class as Elizamary began her demonstration.  The students were gathered around the desk on which apples, sugar, cinnamon and a Saran-wrapped lump of pastry made the day before were displayed in order of assembly.  Elizamary stood behind the desk like a runner in starting blocks, waiting for my signal to begin.

I hadn’t fully thought through the dangers of demonstrating pie-making at warp-speed.  Clearly, Elizamary hadn’t either.  It may have been the time constraint that made the experiment go terribly awry.  Personally, I blame the boys standing so close to her that she could see them salivating for the pie she was concocting.  Whatever it was, it doomed Elizamary’s presentation to a grisly conclusion.

She rolled out the pastry with no problem, talking steadily as she did so.  She lifted it into the pie plate waiting nearby, then picked up an apple and a sharp paring knife.  It’s the latter of those items that wreaked havoc with her well-prepared speech.

 “So,” she said into the camera, a budding Martha Stewart, “you cut the apple in quarters, then you pick up one quarter—like so—and start cutting it into slic…”  The first slice gouged into her finger.  She cringed a little, and the eyes of the front-row guys got bigger.  A pearl of blood oozed from the pad of her index.  Then another one.  She looked up at the camera, where I was preparing to push “pause” and call the school nurse.  One quick shake of her head told me that it wasn’t bad enough to abort what might have been her life’s only foray into the Seventh Art.

“Are you sure?” I whispered from the back of the class.  Quick, decisive nod.  She kept right on talking and slicing, each piece of apple she dropped into the bowl sporting a substantial spot of crimson.  Her prop was beginning to look like a crime scene.

One of the students handed Elizamary a Kleenex to wrap around her bleeding digit, but it proved too bulky for her culinary endeavors.  She pulled it off after dumping the mixture of bloody apples, sugar and cinnamon into the prepared pie crust.

I reached to turn off the camera and declare the blood-bath done, but another quick head shake from the front of the class and a pointedly spoken “And now for the top crust!” let me know that this experiment in the grotesque was not yet over.  Elizamary picked up the second circle of pastry she had previously rolled out and gingerly set it on top of the pie, leaving a bright red mark where her finger had touched it.  “Now, this is how you crimp the edges.”  And she set about pinching the crust all the way around the pie, leaving wet red prints every inch or so of the circumference.

“Are you sure you don’t want to…”

“It’s fine, Miss Phoenix.”  The glare told me to keep filming until the demonstration had reached its gory conclusion.

You’d think the story would end there, right?  She’d say a final word, receive the applause of her classmates, and toss the pie into the nearest trash can.

Not so, I’m afraid.

You see, those guys sitting near the front of the class weren’t there because of an avid interest in baking.  They were that close because of an avid interest in the fruit of Elizamary’s demonstration.  And they weren’t about to let that sanguinary pie go to waste.  They took it upon themselves to make a ceremonial trek down one floor to the staff kitchen with their hemoglobin tart.  They stuck it in the oven and waited all of lunch break for it to be finished baking.  And I spent all of lunch break trying to talk them out of eating it.

Not for the first time in my life, I lost.

When the pie came out of the oven, its crust golden brown and its edges adorned in that regular pattern of now browned blood, not one of those boys hesitated.  They carved out giant chunks of steaming apple pie with a side of plasma and dove into it without a second thought.

The girls were horrified.  They squealed and fanned their faces in a way they thought would make the guys consider them cute.  I think one of them gagged just a little.  But the guys were unconcerned.  They devoured it—right down to the last flake of polka-dot crust.

So…  Got a psychological, spiritual, emotional or moral parallel to share?  What sermon or inspirational talk would you preface with Elizamary’s story?  Do tell!  You can either post it in the comment box below or directly under the link to this post on Facebook.  I’ll transfer those comments here for all to see…

Given some of the vitriolic responses I’ve had to previous articles, you’d think my chief New Year’s Resolution for 2012 would be to write on less controversial topics.  One reader responded to Holy Hypocrisy by essentially calling me a cynical and bitter parent-hater intent on demonizing missions and missionaries.  I choked on my croissant and briefly considered writing on safer topics—like language learning and overseas driving.  But I could hardly call myself an MK Advocate if I steered clear of topics important enough to engender heated responses.

So here it is.  The first article of 2012.  My remarks are based on 43 years as an MK and 20 years in MK education.  I love missions as much as I love being a missionary.  I also love the children of missionaries.  It is for their sake that I unequivocally state that abandoning one’s children, even for the sake of the Gospel, is unconscionable.

The part of Canada where my dad grew up was the site of noble missionary zeal during the 40s and 50s.  Singles, couples and families boarded lumbering planes for distant places devoid of the comforts and ease to which they’d been accustomed.  How worthy their calling.  How laudable their sacrifices.  But my enthusiasm wanes when I consider scenes like the following, reported in the history of my dad’s home church in Ontario.  The year was 1944, and the Carlins (name changed) were headed to French Equatorial Africa.

“The following spring, in spite of the war raging in Europe, these dedicated people set out by steamer for language training in Switzerland.  The hearts of all church members were deeply moved at the farewell service as Mrs. Carlin committed her four-year old son, David, to the care of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh (name changed), saying that she felt the Lord had emptied her arms that she might fill them with black boys and girls and bring them to the Saviour who had died for them.”

The Lord had emptied her arms?  The first time I read that paragraph, I literally felt a chill go down my spine.  How could this mother say that?  How could she hand her son over to someone else to raise?  Like so many other missionaries of that era, she and her husband would be gone for four years at a time, returning for brief summers, then leaving again.  There were no phone lines, in those days, between Africa and America.  There were hand-written letters that took weeks to reach young children being raised in group homes.  It’s safe to assume that David would feel little or no connection with his parents when each set of four years was up.  And when people asked him where his real parents were, what would he answer?  God had, in essence, orphaned him.  Try living with that sour dose of reality.

Though the world of missions has changed in the years since the Carlin family headed to Africa, and though a majority of missionaries are committed to parenting well, neglect and outright abandonment still heart-wrenchingly occur in ministry.  Sometimes it is a parental choice for the sake of practicality, and sometimes it is a mission’s mandate.  Sometimes it is as intentional as Mrs. Carlin’s relinquishment of immediate parenthood, and sometimes it is a more subtle neglect of Family for the sake of Ministry.  It is often with lofty motivations.  I’m not sure they really matter if a child feels discarded.

(Please understand that this is not an anti-boarding manifesto.  In my two decades teaching at Black Forest Academy, I’ve seen family bonds strengthened and students enriched while living away from home.  I believe that the boarding experience can be beautiful and worthwhile…if it happens at the right age, with the child’s honest, informed agreement, and with the parents’ intelligent commitment to long-distance parenting.  More on this topic in an upcoming series.)

Here’s the bottom line.  Abandonment (whether deliberate or accidental) leaves scars.  One of the saddest conversations I’ve ever had was with a young man who told me that his parents sent him to BFA because he was keeping them from concentrating on their work.  He tried for stoicism as he spoke, but fell short.  He was hurt, wounded by those who were supposed to nurture and care for him.  They’d chosen work over their own child.  Equally unfathomable is one mission’s requirement (no exceptions) that its missionaries send their elementary-age children to boarding school in order to focus on language study.  Try explaining that policy to a six-year old being tucked into her dorm bed by a stranger!

Physical separation isn’t the only kind of abandonment I’ve witnessed.  There have been numerous students whose parents never made it to BFA for any of the events they were involved in even though they lived nearby, and others who showed absolutely no interest in being emotionally and intellectually present in their children’s lives.

I’ve seen abandonment destroy any hope for family connection.  I’ve seen it foster anger, resentment and rebellion.  I’m seen it cause unhealthy attachments to others or a refusal to belong to anyone, lest one be left again.  I’ve seen the side-effects of rejection manifest themselves later—when MKs “abandoned” at an early age were suddenly expected to enter into a marriage relationship that required interdependence or to parent their own children in an intimate way.   One former student recently wrote, “I love my daughter, I really do, but my understanding of hands-on motherhood only extends through fourth grade.  What am I going to do when she turns 10?  Ship her off to Germany for someone else to raise?”

The relational trauma is one thing.  The spiritual devastation is another. I’ve seen abandonment destroy faith time and time again. If the torture of parentlessness is inflicted in the name of God, it’s no surprise that an MK is going to hold Him responsible for the pain.  And if an MK’s anger goes deep enough, the consequences may literally be hell.  Is God really pleased if we “empty our arms” of the children He gave us, only to see them reject the faith we blame for their sacrifice?  I can’t imagine that God would condone such maiming neglect in a community that is supposed to reflect His character.  He fiercely loves children.  So should His ambassadors.

You’ll hear the usual denials.  “But I really liked going to boarding school when I was 8!”  “I’m proud of my parents for making that sacrifice!”  “My friends were my family.”  In some cases the denials might even be true.  Children are resilient.  MKs are yet more so.  But among those I’ve known who were unceremoniously “dumped” by their parents for the sake of practicality or expediency, the scars—sometimes discovered years later—have been profound.

At the MK Summit I hosted in Wheaton a few months ago, Sunny told of the recent night she’d spent retching in her bathroom after an adverse reaction to something she’d eaten.  She was in pain, scared and utterly alone.  She realized that night that there had never been anyone around to help her when she’d been in direst need, and all she wanted, as she lay on the bathroom floor, was for someone who loved her to be there to hold her…just once in her life.

She had started boarding school in third grade.

Does ministry demand sacrifices?  Yes.  Of course, it does.  Should the greatest sacrifices we make be our children?  No.  Not in the name of the God of Love.  It’s time for the missionary community to condemn neglect when it happens, to challenge those who commit it, to change policies that are harmful to MKs, and to love our own children as we love the unsaved.

To donate to this important ministry, please click HERE.

Make sure you specify that it’s for Michele Phoenix’s ministry.