Are Your Children "Becoming One"?

Dad
May 26, 2003

July 31‚ 1978MO—DFO 728

—By Father David.

1. THAT ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE THE FINAL RUB WITH MISSIONARIES: HOW THEY TREAT THEIR CHILDREN! Whether they send them "home" to relatives to get their education and/or prevent them from dating the local young people!

2. (MARIA WE'VE HAD A NUMBER OF CASES where people were keeping their children home all day long in the house because they were afraid the truant officer would see them and they would be forced to go to local schools!)

3. DON'T BE AFRAID TO PUT YOUR KIDS INTO THE LOCAL SCHOOLS‚ even if you have to pay tuition! The local officials will probably be glad to have them even if you don't pay tuition. In some places we've sent some children to the local schools, and the officials and teachers loved them! It was really good for the children too.

4. MOST SCHOOLS OF THE WORLD HAVE HIGHER STANDARDS AND BETTER DISCIPLINE THAN U.S. SCHOOLS and they're not as anti–God or full of vice, crime or drugs as the U.S. schools. It will also help the children learn the local language, customs and history and "Become One" much better. (See Letter No.208.)

5. IT'S A SAD COMMENTARY ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES which we found common in my old churchy System denomination: They wanted to take or send their kids home for schooling and dating rather than letting them "become one." This showed they didn't really love the people very much that they were ministering to.

6. THE NEXT RUB AFTER THE SCHOOLING WAS WHEN THEIR CHILDREN BECAME TEENAGERS AND STARTED DATING THE LOCAL NATIVES. The parents were horrified that they might marry one and have little brown babies! So they sent them back to the U.S. to live with relatives and go to school there and meet some nice (?) U.S. mate and settle down into a nice (?) churchy Systemite U.S. life!

7. HONESTLY NOW, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT YOUR KIDS TO DO? Is that what you've been secretly thinking or planning?—Or maybe you've already done it! Don't you love the people you're ministering to enough to "become one" and stay there forever and let your kids become permanent missionaries or natives of that country too?—Or do you still have U.S. or Western hang-ups or hang-overs that make you want to make your poor little kids Western or U.S. Systemites like you were?

8. IN MY OWN OLD DENOMINATION WE FOUND MOST MISSIONARY KIDS DIDN'T EVEN LIKE THEIR "HOME COUNTRY" (THE U.S.) when they were sent "home"! They themselves preferred to remain on the field in which they were born or reared and where their friends were and to which they were more familiar and adapted. The "foreign" field was much more of a home to them than the so-called U.S. or Western "home" of their parents!

9. THEIR PARENT'S "HOME COUNTRY" WAS A FOREIGN COUNTRY TO THEM! Unless you think the U.S. or the West needs more missionaries, we suggest you keep your children with you on the field and let them integrate with the natives as you should in "becoming one"! Paul says, "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some!" (1Cor.9:22.)

10. THIS SHOWS WHETHER YOU THE PARENTS ARE REAL MISSIONARIES OR NOT and whether you really love the people to whom you are ministering enough to let your children "Become One"!

11. THEY CAN EVEN BE A TREMENDOUS WITNESS AND TESTIMONY among the natives of the school to which you send them, as we have discovered in several cases where parents have sent their children to the local school.

12. I WENT TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS in heathen States of the U.S. and I received a lot of persecution for my faith, yet I survived it! I was a faithful witness, like I was in the Army also.

13. MY OWN FOUR KIDS WERE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS TOO sometimes and it did them good to see the difference. It never shook my faith nor theirs‚ for we were grounded in the Lord and the Word long before we went to public school.

14. WE HAVE HEARD OF SOME OF OUR OWN FOOLISH PARENTS actually keeping their children at home in the house all day for fear they'll be caught by the local truant officer‚ instead of going ahead and sending them to school where they ought to be!

15. YOUR LOCAL SCHOOL PROBABLY HAS BETTER TEACHERS THAN YOU ARE AND BETTER MATERIALS AND FACILITIES THAN YOU HAVE! Our own Family Care and Childcare educational materials are not intended to keep the kids out of local schools. They're only intended to give our kids a good foundation in faith and the basic 3 R's and 3 G's, particularly where there is no other good education available, or before school age.

16. SO WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE LOCAL SCHOOL?—PROBABLY PLENTY! But it's not as bad as your having to try to teach them yourself and using your own busy time with your own limited materials and facilities!

17. AND I'M SURE IT'S NO WORSE THAN THE NATIVE SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES or the West, and probably not as bad! It might be a little hard on the kids in some ways, but the advantages will certainly outweigh the disadvantages in most cases.

18. YOU CANNOT ALWAYS PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN FOREVER FROM ALL EVIL EVERYWHERE. Sooner or later they are going to want to see what's out there and find out for themselves, just out of curiosity if nothing else, and the local school is as good a place as any to start, where they'll at least be under some kind of discipline and supervision—maybe even better than yours!—In fact, maybe that's just what they need!

19. IF YOU HOLD YOUR KIDS DOWN AND BACK TOO MUCH and are too restrictive and over-protective and you coddle them too much and keep them from contact with the world too long, when they finally get out there they're apt to explode and go haywire for lack of experience and preparation!

20. I'VE SEEN MANY A PREACHER'S KID who was reared narrowly and prohibitively who absolutely went wild when he first got away from home, because he didn't know how to handle his new-found freedom!

21. IT'S MUCH BETTER FOR THEM TO BECOME GRADUALLY ADJUSTED through normal contacts with the world and its ways at earlier school ages when they won't like it and will appreciate their Christian Family home and parents more.

22. I THINK THAT'S THE WAY I FELT: School and the outside world suffered sorely by comparison with my own home, and I think it made me love my parents and home more and it made me more thankful and appreciative of my own home and my own folks and my own faith!

23. IN THE MEANTIME, IF YOU'VE TRAINED THEM RIGHT, THEY CAN BE GOOD PR FOR YOU and good testimonies in the local school. In fact, it might even help you parents to better "become one" and learn more about the local language, customs and history etc. which you need to know!

24. ALSO, IT USUALLY CREATES GOOD CONTACTS WITH THE LOCALS—parents, teachers, authorities and so on‚ and can become one of the greatest proofs that you really love and respect them and feel that you're one of them.

25. HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK THE LOCAL NATIVES FELT THOSE CHURCH MISSIONARIES LOVED THEM when the missionaries ripped off their kids from the local schools or local dating and rushed them back to the U.S. as soon as they were old enough for school or dating?—It even disgusted me when I heard about it as a very young Christian! I told my mother,

26. "IT CERTAINLY DOESN'T SOUND TO ME LIKE THOSE MISSIONARY PARENTS LOVE THE NATIVE PEOPLE if they don't want their kids to mix with native children!" It certainly proved they didn't care to "Become One" and they certainly didn't have much love and respect for the local population!

27. THEY MUST STILL THINK THE U.S. OR WEST IS SOMEHOW SUPERIOR and they shouldn't stoop to conquer, woo or win!—And usually their children got worse when the parents brought them back to the "home country" than they were on the field! It really disgusts me!

28. I'VE EVEN HEARD OF MISSIONARIES WHO QUIT THE FIELD PERMANENTLY BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T WANT THEIR KIDS REARED ON THE FIELD WITH THE NATIVES! My God! What are we coming to if that's all the heart we have for the rest of the world? I still believe what I wrote in "Become One":

29. YOU OUGHT TO GO TO YOUR FIELD WITH HOPES YOU WILL BE ABLE TO REMAIN THERE FOREVER, both you and your children and your little black, yellow or brown grand–babies and great-grand-babies!—As some already have! Praise the Lord! Thank God some of you are really integrating and "becoming one" and your children too!

30. THE MORE LOCAL BABIES YOU HAVE and the more your children become like natives, the more your natives will love you and know you love them!—Amen? Otherwise, you're not really a missionary at all if not in body and children too!

31. LET YOUR CHILDREN GO TO THE LOCAL SCHOOL AND LET THE YOUNGER ONES MATE and/or marry local converts and become really native—And thank God for it, for your adopted home and people, and that you have truly "Become One" with the people you love!

32. FOR IF YOU HAVE REARED THEM RIGHT, THEY'LL NOT GO ASTRAY, or at least not for long. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."—Prov.22:5.

33. SOMETIMES THEY DEPART FOR A LITTLE, while they're still young‚ but they'll always sooner or later come back to the Lord in the way they know is right if you've trained them up right. So don't worry about it.

34. TRUST THE LORD AND SEND THEM TO SCHOOL AND LET THEM MARRY, and they can "become one" of the greatest witnesses you've ever had! Of course‚ if you have a good school of your own with good teachers‚ that's fine.—But how are they ever going to really "become one" with the locals unless they mix with them study with them‚ play with them and mate with them?

35. BUT IF THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WANT, YOU'D BETTER GO "HOME"!—YOU'RE NOT A REAL MISSIONARY!—Are you?