A group of students from Murree Christian School in Pakistan

The theme of the recent SIM Global Leaders Gathering was "To live, love, learn, and leave a legacy." And although these ideas were being explored from a different emphasis within the gathering, they paint a great picture of the goals SIM holds for missionary kids.

Missionary kids, MKs, are an extension of the ministry of their parents. The parents feel God's calling on their lives to go ... to live in another country, another culture, a new set of rules, a different language ... but they don't leave their children behind. Of course not. The children follow their parents and learn to adapt to a new ebb and flow ...

Caroline Black, an MK who grew up in Ethiopia, used these words to describe her experience:

I come from a world where ambassadors are chauffeured along dusty, unpaved roads in shiny black cars while donkeys trot complacently on the pavement. I come from a world where crippled beggars knock on the window of the taxi I’m riding in with my friends. I come from a world where I attempt fragments of the language to get myself around and people on the street yell fragments of my language back at me. I come from a world where school is a united nations of cultures brought together by a common dislike of French class, and I debate the proper time for dinner with an Italian friend, the correct spelling of ‘favorite’ with a British friend, and politics with a group representing at least five different countries. I live in a world where there is color and confusion, prosperity and poverty, dust and development. I come from a world that is far different from my country of birth.

Growing up as a missionary kid in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has been an exciting, incomprehensible, eye-opening, instructive, and challenging experience. It has revealed the huge world that exists beyond me and the possibilities it holds. It has taught me to see the beauty of the differences amongst people and cultures, and to cope well when things don’t go according to plan. It has given me the opportunity to look AIDS and poverty in the eyes and realize that I care—and that I can do something to make a difference. And, of course, it has brought confusion as I realize that I am completely American, but at the same time, so incredibly not. Where I come from can be a struggle, but it has shaped me and taught me, and I would have it no other way, for it is my home.

As a community of God's people who are seeking to fulfill Christ's mission in the world, SIM has a keen desire to make sure that missionary kids have the best opportunities available to learn and grow throughout their school-age years—becoming faithful followers of Christ who will engage the next generation with the Gospel.

SIM has established many MK and International schools in the areas in which they serve, and many of them are dependent on teachers who want to teach and experience a new and exciting culture. In the upcoming 2009-2010 academic year, there are a number of opportunities for teachers that desire to be involved in cross-cultural ministry—teach children how to live, love, learn, and leave a legacy of their own for God's glory!

Pray

• That God would call the right people for each opening in each school.
• That the kids would enjoy a safe, fun, and relaxing summer break.
• That MKs would know that they are an integral part of their parents' ministry.
• That the kids would adjust well to the ever-changing lifestyle of today's missionary families.

Go