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.

As we mark this anniversary of Jesus’ birth, may we savor the moments with our loved ones and rejoice in the memories of those who celebrate in Heaven.

M E R R Y    C H R I S T M A S,   E V E R Y O N E!

‘Tis the season to be jolly.  No argument there.  Except perhaps if you’re a bus driver in downtown Chicago, in which case ‘tis the season to be sarcastic, grumbly and all around snarky.  ‘Tis also the season to send Christmas newsletters to the uninterested masses.  Assuming you live dead-center in the shopping, partying and ugly-sweatering flashmob that is Christmas in this culture, I’ve been very careful to remove any semblance of depth and meaning from this particular year-end wrap-up, lest it cause undue sobriety to your frenetic “jolly”!

On the TWELFTH month before Christmas, the January lows brought news of cholesterol highs.  I set my mind to a fierce anti-fat fight, which lasted until I passed a defenseless piece of cheesecake.  I also discovered that Oprah and I share a birthday.  That’s great news for whoever was in Harpo Studio on the 29^th, not so great for little old me sitting in Wheaton a scant 20 miles away.  “YOU get a car…YOU get a car…YOU get a car!!  Oh, and you over in Wheaton get that sad little piece of cheesecake.”

On the ELEVENTH month before Christmas, Snowmageddon reminded me that I was not in Kansas…er, Kandern…anymore.  I strapped on my $5.99 pair of Walmart snowboots and waded into the post-blizzard whitescape of cheerful neighbors and migrant workers sharing the burden of 22 inches of ill-fallen snow.  Hot cider, hearty hooplas and heavy hefting until sundown for all, with boomboxes blaring and high fives clapping.  Yup, not Kandern anymore.

On the TENTH month before Christmas, a trip to California made me eat my lifelong “why would anybody ever move to a place that could become a floating landberg at any moment” mantra.  I fell in love with the Eureka state.  As a sort of penance, I decided to give my up uterus for Lent.  Note to self: in the future, think through how to retrieve Lentified organs once Easter is over.

On the NINTH month before Christmas, surgery-schmurgery.  My oh-so-Phoenix determination to recover like no woman has ever recovered before found me standing in front of a roomful of people in Port Huron, Michigan, ten days after major surgery, clinging to the podium to stay upright and trying to convince myself that the constant swirling of the room was no more disquieting than, say, a pleasant Nyquil high.  Who was I kidding?  It was like proclaiming MK truths while hurtling through Space Mountain in an unhinged coaster-car…and enjoying a not-so-pleasant Nyquil high along the way.

On the EIGHTH month before Christmas, it’s off to Europe I went, where I spent the first three days ingesting sixteen pastries.  Not kidding.  Might as well have rubbed them on my thighs in a circular motion.  (Thank you, Michelle Young, for that über-descriptive phrase.)

On the SEVENTH month before Christmas, I took the Trip of a Lifetime before packing up the Stuff of a Lifetime and officially making the Move of a Lifetime to the States.  Find George Clooney’s villa?  Check.  Witness my last BFA graduation?  Check.  Say goodbye to Swiss mountains, French hills and squeaky-clean German sidewalks?  Check.  As I walked to my plane on a rainy Tuesday morning, I heard Casablanca’s “We’ll always have Paris” playing in my mind.  Paris?  Not exactly.  And there’s really no “we” involved either.  But the phrase sounded just melodramatic enough for the occasion.

On the SIXTH month before Christmas, I told myself I’d survive the Illinois heat.  Then I lead a mission’s reentry seminar for four consecutive 95-degree days in an unventilated windowed room in which the A/C had gone out.  It’s not good to cuss in front of children.  Not even under your breath.

Still reading?  Then I’ll go on…

On the FIFTH month before Christmas, I saved my mom’s pet chipmunk from a lonely, watery death.  I’m still waiting for an invitation to the White House to honor my bravery, but Obama appears too busy with [insert Rush Limbaugh quip here] to recognize my devotion to scavenging rodents.

On the FOURTH month before Christmas, I was reintroduced to football by a pair of rabid fans.  Once I got over my “tight end” giggles and my regulation confusion, I sat back to be entertained by the high octane, body-slamming ferociousness…of Marilyn and Marcia’s spectatoring!  Game time?  Endless.  Jay Cutler?  Thumbless.  Eighty-something-year old Miss Scribner opening the back door at every touchdown to toot her horn at the neighbors?  Priceless.

On the THIRD month before Christmas, I sat in a darkened, tenth-floor apartment on Moody’s campus in Chicago and squinted into the hundreds of stacked homes I could see from my perch, feverishly wishing I had thought to bring binoculars.  Then I washed my mind out with soap, said three Hail Marys and vowed never ever to watch Rear Window again.

On the SECOND month before Christmas, I discovered that the portrait of a stranger purchased for $10 dollars from a flea market could become the focal point of an MK retreat.  Thanks to rampant imaginations, Humphrey Reginald Archibald Herbert Dalton Huffington Esquire ended the weekend with four ex-wives, a smoking habit and a home in my overstuffed storage room.  He’s the sole man in my life and he’s not getting away!

On the LAST month before Christmas, I looked back on the year and decided it had been good.  Different than I expected?  Yes.  But good.  To celebrate, I headed to Chicago for Moody’s Christmas concert with my mom.  We nearly missed it because an Australian man by the name of Gavin Patrick Studdebaker (aka. my GPS’s voice) steered us to a seedy segment of southside Chicago, across town from our actual destination.  I ranted and raved about the failures of technology, wrote a scathing Facebook status or two, and vowed to go back to using maps…then I discovered that my beloved but techno-challenged mother had entered the wrong address into Gavin Patrick’s very literal brain.  Sigh…

And thus, dear readers, ends my official Christmas newsletter.  The bad news is that most of you didn’t make it to the end.  The good news is that it will easily morph into a kick-patootie New Year’s resolution post: stay out of the heat, avoid extreme Lent giveaways, and call Jenny Craig.

Have you ever watched “What Not To Wear”? It’s a TLC show in which Stacey London and Clinton Kelly kidnap an unsuspecting fashion-criminal, show her secret footage of the outfits (loose term) she’s worn in the past couple of weeks, throw out every shred of her wardrobe, then give her $5,000 to spend on brand new clothes that follow the rules the TV hosts set out. It’s great fun…for the spectator. On days when I’m home at 11, I find myself watching the innocent’s fashion sense torn to shreds (along with her self-esteem), then rebuilt—hair, makeup and all—into something world-worthy. Not runway-worthy. Just world-worthy. Five thousand only goes so far…

Some of you might be surprised to learn that I watch the show. Lacking the $5,000 credit card, I bend some of the rules and adapt others to my personal style, leaving me with a missionary-meets-mainstream look that is, believe it or not, several notches above the usual What Not To Wear before-picture.

Imagine my surprise, this week, upon learning that an MK would be featured on a rerun of the show. Her name is Michelle. She never says where her parents were missionaries—only that she lived abroad for a significant portion of her youth. And she refers to the “Missionary Barrels” that were, sadly, her Stacey and Clinton during her formative style years. Missionary Barrels, for the uneducated, are collections of hand-me-downs made available for missionaries by their supporting churches. I remember them well. Sometimes they were treasure troves of great finds for needy MKs. Sometimes, they were the equivalent of what you’d find in the dumpster on TLC’s house-flipping shows.

Stacey and Clinton are at a loss as to how to define Michelle’s look. Stacey says it reminds her of an era when “gypsy librarians roamed the earth” and Clinton just rolls his eyes as she tries on outfit after outfit, boasting that she bought one Hawaii-meets-animal-print shirt in Florence (Italy) and that her favorite skirt is made out of a bedspread.

Things get really interesting when the comical hosts start making references to 1970s TV shows. Michelle responds to a “Mrs. Roper” allusion with a blank stare and appears only mildly aware of who Mary Tyler Moore’s next door neighbor might be.

Oh, how I remember the sensation of “being in the world but not of it”…in the worst and somewhat misappropriated sense of the verse. Being IN a culture but not OF it. Being IN a conversation but not OF it. In my college days, the shows of reference were The Simpsons, Roseanne, Cheers, Night Court and Alf. Conversations on those topics left me feeling like a French fish out of American water. “Pulling a Cliff Claven” had no significance to me. Only years (and many reruns) later was I able to assign a sitcom to catchphrases like “I kill me,” “Na-nu, na-nu,” “Eat my shorts!” and “Don’t be ridiculous!” (said with a distinctive Myposian accent).

At the recent MK Summit held here, this disconnect between MKs and modern pop-culture was mentioned multiple times. I say “modern” because we’re sometimes good at the older stuff. When I was growing up, French TV was showing decade-old reruns of Starsky and Hutch, Love Boat and Magnum PI. If you’d asked me about the length of Magnum’s shorts, I would have had an answer within a quarter-inch! But if you’d asked me what Screech was famous for, I would have stared at you like I was stuck in a bad episode of What Not to Wear.

The problem is that merely being “in” a culture doesn’t necessarily allow for the casual connections that may eventually lead to deeper friendship. Pop Culture is to American youth what mandarin is to Chinese youth. There’s no way around that. I’ve discussed in previous articles how the MK relational diagram differs from a mono-cultural American diagram—the former dive deep quickly (jump off a cliff), the latter slowly descend into more intimate territory (wade in gradually). What many MKs rebel against is the fact that the “wading” must be done in a language of which they know little: through waves of TV references, rip tides of movie lore and undertows of novels about vampires more intent on venting their melodramatic emotions than on baring their fangs.

I was of the stubborn variety of MKs who refused to investigate what all the hoopla was about. I was not (said with a condescending nose-raise) going to lower myself to watching a sitcom about a glorified hand-puppet from Melmac whose name was the acronym for Alien Life Form. I would not—repeat, NOT—lower myself to watching such drivel. I was more comfortable elevating myself to the rank of social snob, which equated me rather embarrassingly with a missionary to, say, Bangladesh, who refuses to learn Bengali, but waits condescendingly for the culture in which he’s landed to learn his “far superior” mother tongue. It sounds ludicrous in those terms, yet MKs do exactly that with regard to North American pop culture…which, whether we like it or not, is one of this country’s primary dialects!

We swear we’ll never become versed in the linguistic patterns of TV-watching potential-friends. We swear we’d rather run the Great Wall of China in stilettos than have a conversation about so-beneath-our-social-rank shows. We swear we’d never be caught dead debating the philosophical ramifications of Edward versus Jacob… And we barricade ourselves inside an arrogant fortress of our own making, confident of our superiority and completely alone.

My point? There are indeed some aspects of pop culture that we’re better off ignoring. And I’m not advocating that we saturate our minds with truly damaging fare. But there can be connection and community in attempting to speak Bengali to the Bangladeshi, and in order to do so, we just may have to sample some Bollywood buffoonery, at least on occasion.

Thirteen MKs representing 21 countries.  A magical guesthouse.  The astounding generosity of strangers who covered most of the costs.  Three days to reconnect, share life experiences, and gather information that will become articles, videos and other MK resources.  Such a forgotten people group with so much to vent and even more to contribute…

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Here are two videos that will summarize our shared experiences better than any number of paragraphs could.  The footage, of course, is incomplete–there are so many more MK interviews to do and so many (over a hundred!) 11-page surveys to read and compile.  But it’s a start.  (Readers in Europe will have to view the movie from my Facebook page, because of Youtube’s copyright limitations.)

And some outtakes…which are inevitable with 10 hours of filming!

This weekend served to create a sort of “MK Baseline,” a reference point for my ongoing exploration of the modern MK.  In the weeks and months ahead, I’ll be delving into the experiences of other adults who were raised by missionaries, some who have thrived, some who have floundered, and others whose faith has yielded to atheism.  What a profound responsibility it is, and what an honor to brush lives with these fascinating, multi-faceted people.  I’m so blessed–so blessed–to have been called to this ministry.

Someone this week asked me why I haven’t posted any links that would allow people to donate to this ministry.  I’m a little uncomfortable with that, as there’s a fine line between “providing the opportunity to give” and “begging and groveling”!  So please see this as an opportunity given, should you feel the urge to donate once or take on regular support.  You can do so by following the link below or contacting me directly at the email address above.

To donate to this important ministry, please click HERE.

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

April, 13 2009.  A stuffy old flea market in Müllheim, Germany.  I’m wandering around with that mix of anticipation, whimsy and determination that tends to motivate people like me to darken the door of mouse-overrun dirty spaces.  In America, we now call them “pickers.”  In Germany, we call them Glastopfeingerichkenhemmers, or something just as long and unintelligible.  I look down into the cobwebbed void between two armoires, then hold my breath and peer more closely into the dark space.  A clock.  An hour later, I stare at my $15 find with oblique emotions.  Sure, a little cleaning and oiling has brought out its much-less-gray natural colors.  It’s pretty, but…is it worth anything?  Oh, and does it work?

October 5, 2011.  The clock has born the insult of bubble-wrap and cardboard, made the long journey from Germany to America in a cargo ship, been released from its captivity in a storage unit in Carol Stream, and it now hangs on a stranger’s wall under the knowledgeable scrutiny of a Clock Practitioner, a Chime Conductor, a Wood Jeweler by the name of Don.  My friend Marilyn (aka. Miss Scribner, below) has brought me and my clock to him for its first official checkup…at least in this century.

He sets the movement in motion and listens as the tictoc grows steady and the mechanism’s hammer rises, then falls convincingly onto nothing.  Ten points for enthusiasm.  Zero points for anything else.

But there’s apparently something in this European rescue that my new friend deems worthy of his time.  For the next two hours, Don tirelessly removes the movement, makes a minute (pun intended) adjustment and reinserts the movement well over a hundred times, trying to make that hammer fall squarely on the coiled metal that is the chime.  I hold a flashlight, try to anticipate his visual needs, and chatter on about Dancing with the Stars, the stock market and whatever else will keep him from throwing my clock through his dining room window, as he’s threatened to do.  By the time I leave, it’s actually striking the hour, but there is this small noise, just before the strike, that he hasn’t been able to completely resolve.

October 29, 2011.  At around 3 am, a strange sound makes it through my exhausted stupor and wakens my sprained brain.  At first, I assume it must be one of this neighborhood’s many skateboarders clicking over the seams in the sidewalk outside my window.  But the sound is too metallic to be that.  Something Halloween’y prompts a quick horror scenario in my mind.  I picture Edward Scissor-Hands standing outside my bedroom door, clicking his sharp stainless steel appendages in rhythmic anticipation of my massacre.

Never one to be subdued by morbid meanderings of the mind (except for that one time when my parents found me standing in my pajamas in the rainy street when they got home after dark…), I rolled out of bed and went on a bit of an audio-hunt for the strange noise, pleased to find no one Johnny Depp’ish waiting in the shadows outside my bedroom door.  I tiptoed into my guestroom and stopped dead (well, not quite dead—no need to call the coroner or anything) in my tracks.  Sitting on the floor where I’d left it a couple weeks ago was my German clock, its movement tictoc’ing joyfully and its internal arm poised for yet another strike.

But I haven’t wound the clock in weeks.  It ran out of umph a long time ago and has sat silent in the guest bedroom ever since.  Strange that it has spontaneously roused itself.  And a little creepy.

This is where the writer in me wants to take you on a mystical rabbit trail where wizards, dragons, centennial clockmakers and magic spells populate a wonky, multi-colored, ever-transforming landscape.  But I don’t have the time for that today.  Fifteen adult MKs are converging on Wheaton this Friday for a brainstorming weekend I’m hosting and there’s too much left for me to do to be engaging in fiction!

My clock, which apparently is worth a couple hundred dollars here, has cleaned up beautifully, and the dents and scratches on its face and pendulum attest to the long, international life it’s lived.  It is beautiful and simple, and it keeps time perfectly (when I think to wind it).  I love the sound of its chime—deep and rich, like the wood that frames it.  But…

I’ve been listening to my clock this morning, trying to enjoy the rhythmic tictoc and the sound of that chime.  It hasn’t been easy.  When that little hammer raises, it glances off the top of the coil with a tinny, vibrating “schtroing” (roll the R for full effect) before falling onto the bottom of the coil and releasing the warm, reverberating hum I love.  Every half hour, my ears perk up, anticipating the melodious sound that is the product of meticulous engineering, but before I can absorb its beauty, I find my ears offended by the initial “schtroing,” which sets my mind on a “how can I fix this problem” train of thought and robs the clock’s chime of its beauty.  (Listen to the 7-second video for full understanding!)

I think I do that with people too.  Do you?  There is so much human richness in each of us, but I find it easy to let the quirks in others draw my focus away from what is appealing and good.  I get all caught up in fixing-mode or being-annoyed-mode and fail to honor the beauty and uniqueness that are so much vaster and deeper than the quirks.  The person who speaks too shrilly, who processes too slowly, who articulates too poorly, who drives too erratically…whose tastes aren’t mine, whose priorities aren’t mine, whose way of life is antithetical to mine.  I get so caught up in the “schtroing” that I miss the chime.

As I prepare for the MK Summit to begin in just three days, may I offer an exhortation to those of us who brush lives with the slightly-different?  (And sometimes MKs are exactly that!)  If only we could look beyond the behavioral, visual, social or intellectual schtroings that are so blatantly obvious in them…and make the effort to find the beauty—the chimes—beyond what’s disconcerting or annoying in the person God created.  I know my internal hammer sometimes clangs and glitches too, yet I hope those who know me can see beyond my shortcomings to what really defines me.  If I expect it of them, shouldn’t I offer the same grace in return?

I used to scrapbook.  I’d cover the surface of my dining room table with all the accoutrements of a Memory Maker and go on a cutting-and-pasting binge.  The first few hours were usually meticulous.  The final few were to scrapbooking what Britney Spears is to acting…and singing…and clothing.  By the end of three straight days spent staring a borders and praying they were parallel, all I wanted was a plate of French fries and someone else to finish my memory-making.

I decided two weeks ago that I would no longer be a scrapbooker.  I’ve gone AWOL from the purgatory of scissors and glue sticks, and I’ve embraced the concept that one can spend a scant couple of hours making a photobook online and have it arrive, all pretty and stuff, in one’s mailbox a few days later.  So a couple days ago, I picked up where I’d left off, which was back in 2008, the year not one but two cancers turned up to derail my Memory-Making.

There’s something perspective-giving about revisiting the past.  Exactly three years ago, I boarded a plane headed for Germany.  The summer of ‘08, with its cancer diagnoses and ten surgeries, was finally behind me, and I was headed home to Black Forest Academy, where six weeks of daily radiation would be balanced with the joy of being back in the classroom, back in a ministry that thrilled me, back in the hills of the Black Forest that are so therapeutic to me.

As I’ve looked back over my old scrapbooks this week, I’ve marveled at all the Life that has transpired since the summer I faced Death.  The emotions accompanying my trek down cancer lane have been all over the map.  Joy that I’m still alive.  Concern that the disease might return.  Gratitude that it hasn’t yet.  But there’s a darker emotion there too.

I am angry.

I didn’t realize how angry I was until a friend spoke to me yesterday about the tests she’s undergoing to determine whether she has cancer too.  Her news came as I’m watching former student and young mother Rebecca’s battle against advanced breast cancer unfold.  As I’m grieving the one-year mark of my friend David’s death to brain cancer (below).  As I’m rejoicing in my friend Jim’s successful surgery for kidney cancer and concerned about the fast-approaching surgery of yet another dear friend.  (You know who you are.)  Sometimes I feel like the stereotypical hero in black and white movies, the guy who says “You can hurt me, but don’t touch my family.”  Part of being a survivor is living with the real possibility that the disease may return.  I’m learning to be okay with that.  What I’m not okay with is it striking my friends.

I seethe at the indiscriminate nature of the beast.  I rave at its unpredictable and insidious attacks.  I rebel at the notion that it may be unbeatable—that generations to come may still suffer its onslaughts.

So this post is my contribution to Cancer Awareness month.  It comes out of my fury that nothing has been successful in eradicating this plague and out of my love for those I know who are suffering.

As two friends waged battles earlier in the summer, I wrote a song whose lyrics I hoped would encourage them to keep fighting—to keep pouring their waning strength into the spirit-breaking challenges of surviving the interminable.  Yes, Heaven will mark the end of the suffering of surviving.  But looking back on the past three years of my life, I have nothing but gratitude for the extra time I’ve been given.  I’m so glad I fought.

I’ve recorded the song here, accompanied by the colors and textures of this season.  Without the time or energy to finesse the recording, this is the sing-it-once-and-hope-for-the-best version of “While Heaven Waits.”  I trust the lyrics will be meaningful despite the technical glitches.  The lines I dedicate today to those who fight cancer and stumble under its weight have everything to do with the One who stumbled under the burden of the cross He too carried: From His scars shines a healing light, from His wounds pours the strength to fight, from His face, the will to run the race…while Heaven waits.”

I ask only two things of you:

Get help:  Rebecca is young—so young—and the disease struck her a decade before any government guidelines would recommend screening.  Don’t wait to see if “it passes.”  Don’t conclude that you’re too young or too healthy or too busy to seek care.  If you suspect, even vaguely, that something isn’t right, get the answers you need.  And if one doctor doesn’t listen, find another, then another.

Give.  There are reputable research foundations that are truly making strides toward earlier detection and better treatment of multiple forms of cancer.  Please give to them.  Your own life may someday depend on the strides they make.  Scientific research, sadly, is an expensive endeavor.  We need to give today to save lives tomorrow.  (Two sites I trust: www.stjude.org and www.komen.org.  Please feel free to recommend other sites in the message portion below.)

Wednesday, 12:30 pm.  What the French would call a “long moment of solitude.”  I stood at the front of a classroom at Moody Bible Institute and smiled at the sole occupant of its 50-some seats.

“You know what this session is about, right?” I asked, convinced that his solitary presence was the result of some misunderstanding.

“Yeah, it’s about finding our identity in Christ or something,” he answered.

“Actually, that’s not quite it.”

“About how the gospel affects our identity in the world?

I gave him my best I’m-so-sorry-for-both-of-us look and said, “Actually, it’s about MKs.  Missionaries’ Kids.”

“Oh.”

“You probably want to go join another sessions, right?”

He ducked his head.  “Yeah, that might be best.”

And off he went into the maze of hallways and elevators that had witnessed my intrepid and expectant arrival mere minutes before.

Two full months of preparations had led me to that moment.  Two months of researching, writing, practicing, building Powerpoints (and losing Powerpoints), creating handouts, then doing more researching, writing, practicing and revamping of all the materials I’d already perfected.

The day before, I’d gone into epic packing mode.  The trip from Wheaton to Moody takes all of 45 minutes in good traffic, yet you’d think I was packing for nuclear winter. Two fans, a borrowed cooler stocked with Chai mix, milk, granola bars and fruit drinks, a laptop, an external hard-drive, a camera, a pillow, medication for every imaginable ailment, a People magazine for brainless interludes…  The more nervous I get, the more I over-prepare, and the state of my car’s trunk was a testament to the burden of responsibility I’d felt since being asked to speak at Moody’s Missionary Conference last summer.

I was eager, I was confident in my materials, and I was determined to give it my best shot…

Right up until no one showed up for the first of my four sessions.

It was a little jarring.  All my meticulous forethought hadn’t allowed for this scenario.  But a vague session title (“The Identity Puzzle”) coupled with the students’ focus on sessions having to do with mission organizations they might join in the future had had what you might understate as an “adverse effect” on attendance at this seminar.

I wasn’t defeated or hurt.  Just pensive as I made the long trek from the classroom to the Commons, where I pondered the situation over an extra-large burrito.  My mom, who had come from Canada to be my sidekick for the conference, sat across from me as I briefly doubted the viability of my calling to expose the MK’s plight to a world that largely doesn’t seem to care.  If my 12:30 session was anything to go by, I had reason to be concerned.

1:25.  Back to Sweeting’s Room 235.  Back to the Smart-Desk I loved so much I wanted to carry it home with me and the rows of empty seats.  Back to the wondering.  One person walked in.

“This is the session on ‘The Lies MKs Believe,’ right?”

I didn’t want to scare the sweet young lady by hugging her, so I opted for a casual, “Yep, it is!”

A few more wandered in.  Then more.

By the time the clock read 1:30, my heart was buzzing with gratitude.  I picked up my new remote control, pointed it at my laptop, and pulled up the first screen:  “Lie #1 – I’ll Never Belong.”

The next three sessions were well attended, the discussions were profound and inspiring, and the response from the staff and students in attendance (MK and non-MK) was everything I had hoped it would be.

Had I doubted my calling during the first sessions’ non-attendance?  No—not my calling.  But I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wondered if it’s really reasonable to expect people to show interest in this topic.  I am so grateful—so grateful—that the Lord quickly countered my concern.

From my two days at Moody, I take away the thrill of multi-lingual worship, of sermons by the likes of George Verwer and Neil Cole, of watching my former BFA classmate (Clive Craigen) direct the massive conference, and of witnessing hordes of young Christians eagerly pursuing a future in ministry.

But it’s the conversations—the indelible conversations—that I carry closest to my heart:

• The young lady who says, chin quivering, “I go through life here, and everything’s mostly okay until I come to a session like this and…”  She lets out a loud breath and looks around at the other MKs.  “It’s like I’m home.”

• The woman who takes copious notes and vows to pass them on to her sister who is raising two children overseas.

• The college student who has been in counseling and hasn’t understood until that session how her multi-cultural background is the reason for her struggles.

• The young man from France who just wants to connect with someone else who “gets” his culture and loves it despite its quirks.

• The young lady with tears in her eyes who wants to become a missionary and asks if it’s possible to raise children overseas and not scar them for life.  (FYI, it is!)

• The older gentleman who stops at my stand during a brief visit to the Institute.  A grown MK with a wife, children, a career, and his entire adult years spent in the States.  He gets excited about my work, wants to pass my information on to organizations he knows.  I ask him how being an MK still plays out in his life.  He chokes up and looks away, seeking composure.  When he looks back at me, this man with all the anchors of stability in his life (career, family) tells me, “I still don’t feel like I belong anywhere.”

• So many other conversations and brief but meaningful encounters…

I’m grateful for the unattended session.  It caused me to question.

And I’m grateful for the following three sessions that answered my questions, revived my passion and confirmed my direction.  There is no expiration date to the needs of MKs.  If they are not met in their early years, they’ll still remain decades later, coloring perspective, dictating identity and motivating decisions.  The tears I witnessed in every session I led were more than an emotional response to the stories I told and the guidance I tried to impart.  They were evidence of the core-deep yearning and unbelonging that is often a part of the MK experience.  Few  say it better than Johan Bojer this quote:

“If you came back, you wanted to leave again.  If you went away, you longed to come back.  Wherever you were, you could hear the call of the herdsman’s horn far away in the hills.  You had one home out there and one over here and yet you were an alien in both places.  Your true abiding place was the vision of something very far off, and your soul, like the waves, always restless and forever in motion.”  Johan Bojer from “The Immigrants”

If I can play even a small role in shedding light on MK-specific needs, in inspiring mono-culturals to see beneath the stereotypes and churches to care in a more intentional and intelligent way, my time, efforts, investment and purposes are not—are NOT—in vain.

Thank you for praying.  The Moody experience was such a well-timed renewal for me.  I wish I could tell you of every encounter I had…they were profound, sobering and ultimately inspiring.  Moving forward with this ministry has never felt more necessary or more galvanizing.  (To be a part of it, please contact me through any of the “contact” links on this site!)

And now?  I’m forging ahead to the MK Summit in two weeks.  As full as my heart is today, I can’t imagine what it will feel like then!  I am blessed, so blessed, that my life and the partnership of like-minded Christians have equipped me for this.  Upward and onward!

**************

In other news…this was also a time of reminiscing for my mom, who graduated from Moody back in 1960!  If you know her or knew my dad, you may be interested in these photos:

Our first stop was the auditorium, where this gentleman was practicing organ pieces. We both teared up at the grandness of the sound.

Standing by the wall of names of those Moody alumni who served in missions.

There they are!

Where she stood so many times as part of the Moody choirs.

The Music Department desk where my dad “worked” as a student.  Rumor has it, he did more flirting than working!

The rehearsal room both my parents knew well.

Manuscript music of two songs my own choirs have done: “Finally Home” and “Worthy is the Lamb.”

The organ room where both my parents learned the instrument.  The only time my dad’s grade was ever better than my mom’s!

The hallway lined with practice rooms.

The office of her favorite voice teacher.

My mom’s window is one of those just to the right of the door.  My dad used to stand at the entrance and whistle up to her.

There were once phone booths in this entryway.  On the night they got engaged, my mom and dad crowded into one to call home and announce the big news…  They were immediately dragged to the dean’s office for standing too close to each other!