MK forum

As I was pulling the weeds out, I may have been imagining certain staff members faces on them. I was in my forties afterall, not a kid!
I don't mean to sound so negative because I truly did love my time on the field and met some wonderful people - like the Garlands, Gills, Wilhelmsons (with their amazing Israeli outreach) to just name a few. Unfortunately, there were just some people at the school that really were not suited to working with children and were inclined to be legalistic instead of loving. I would rather err on the side of grace when it comes to the shaping of a child's spirit instead of taking the chance of breaking it.
There were many people though, that I felt were true servants and loved working and fellowshipping with. We still keep in contact with several of them.

Well put, Sherpa!

Mamabear, you brought back memories of boot camp. We went to Mississippi and my husband was bawled out gor helping others trying to learn how to do things. He got in trouble for having a big heart. He was told to mind his own business...

Mississippi staff have no idea what a wonderful person they tried to destroy

There is no way an "if I offended" blanket letter is an apology to all the people he hurt and offended. For one thing, apologies should be made directly to the person offended by another's actions or words. A letter, if it is impossible to talk directly, should be directed to the specific person(s) or they may never even know it was written. I have never received a letter from him or even knew he wrote one. Sounds like a convenient way to "apologize". Apologizing is putting yourself on the line because you don't really know how the other person will respond. Personally, I think this man has a very good idea who many of the people he offended are and he owes each one a PERSONAL apology, not a group form letter. He is responsible for his apology, and the person who receives the apology is then responsible for their reaction. We can forgive without his apology by God's grace as He works in our hearts, but that man is still responsible before God to go to the person he offended and show true repentance amd humility.

Sherpa, I very much relate to all of this. (But I don't have to make excuses for being a wus, cuz I'm a girl! )
I thought it was traumatizing enough just to watch my Dad butchering chickens! Still remember a vivid dream I had after reading a book about missionaries in China who were beheaded: a nightmare of my parents being beheaded in our back yard and flopping around like chickens.
I too was exposed to too much death as a small child. I was obsessed with it and would lie under a sheet, very still, playing "corpse".
There are some who would say American children are now too protected from the realities of life and death ... and where steak comes from. I wonder if in other cultures, non-MKs who are born and raised there are less traumatized than you and I were?
I hate killing and violence. I hate war. I thought this was because I am a Vietnam-era flower child, but maybe you have touched on a significant factor ...

Peace!

Sherpa, talking about eating pets -- When I was a preschooler at Tambo, I went with my mother to a national home near San Isidro while she attended a sick person. The family gave me a baby duckling wrapped in a rag and I (about 4 years old) carried it all the way home as we walked back. He was my pet for a couple of years until we were ready to go on furlough then my mom (who was raised on a farm) decided it was time to kill it and eat it before we were gone. I raised a real ruckus and my father (who had a tender heart) really stood up for me and would not let her butcher my duck. He said he couldn't eat a pet either. When we came back from furlough my duck was not around so someone ate him while we were gone.

You talked about nightmares -- My nightmares as a child up into high school were about the communists gaining control and persecuting all the christians and misssionary families. Bolivia had so many revolutions, we went through not being able to go off property because of Che Guevara, We had almost been trapped at the La Paz airport when we flew in on one of the old Lloyd (LAB) DC 3's and it was surrounded by soldiers, I had read "Fox's Book of Martyrs" as 9 year old (do not recommend it for a young age) and I heard lots of talk about communism. At one point I remember the U.S. embassy sending out someone to inspect the pista (air strip) on top of the hill and we got out of school to work on it so they could land a DC 3 on it in case they had to evacuate us. Parents were radioing in a name of a relative in the U.S. with information to contact them if we were all evacuatedm My parents were out in a remote village then and I remember being told which relatives I would be sent to. Those were the things that haunted my dreams. I remember a discussion among the dorm kids that if you slept with a Bible under your pillow you wouldn't have bad dreams.

NTM child, I relate to all this, because I too, was from the generation that grew up afraid of the communists. All that fear is a heavy load for a poor child to handle. Nightmares, yes! I didn't sleep with a Bible under my pillow, but I remember praying every night that I wouldn't have bad dreams, and feeling as though there was some magical power in how many times I repeated "please, please, please, please" in my prayer: surely God would answer me, right?
Fear filled the night for me up until just a few years ago when I finally felt safe when I went to sleep.

At the present time, there are countless children growing up all over the world in very fear-filled places. These children won't grow up calling themselves MKs, because their parents refuse to call themselves missionaries. They are "creative access" people who have taken their families into countries where they are not wanted and not appreciated. These children are taught secrecy and deception from the time they are toddlers. Their names and faces are not shown in mission publications. They are coached in what to say and not to say. So as to protect their parents' ministries. So as to preserve their very lives.

Maybe none of the parents of these children will ever wander onto this forum, but if anyone does know any families like this, I beg of you to challenge these parents about what they are doing to their children.

If Sherpa, and NTM Child and I remember childhoods haunted with fear and trauma, what are these children being subjected to right now? Please, please, please, please, think of your children!!!

I think fear is the lifeblood of an MK.

I still find myself fearful of doing anything that may be construed as enjoyment (you can only have enjoyment in the afterlife). fear...Thief in the Night movies...fear...your parents will be told what you did (no matter how innocent) and they will be humiliated...fear of getting too close to the nationals (we didn't even know the term racist)....fear of dating or the opposite sex (you might get pregnant from pda)....fear of sex (since it was wrong - the caveat of "outside of marriage" doesn't fly with a young child's brainwashing)...fear of the wrath of God (somehow the angry dorm parent's face is superimposed as "God" in this scenario)....fear of being alone (since you never were)...fear of not doing well in school...how did we handle all of this stress?

I had panic attacks for a while when I came back stateside and had to do normal thinks like banking. We were so unprepared for normal life. It's no wonder we were rebellious. We were rebelling to be normal!