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MKmama-
Thank you. I know that wasn't easy.
For a long time, I blamed you, because I needed you and you weren't there. I knew you had such a passion to reach the Indians with the Gospel, and yet, I needed you too. When I cried for you in the dorm, or just needed my mommy, I had to do it in secret. If anyone saw me, they'd tell me "stop being a baby. Your parents are busy teaching people God's Word. You don't want to distract them from that, do you?" So, I learned to cry silently. I cried at night and smiled in the morning. If I pretended everything was okay, then nobody would bother me and I could get through another day. I remember waiting for those phone calls, which would come, inevitably, during supper or during sports on the quadra, and I would run halfway across the land to the nearest long distance phone. I liked it when the calls came to the Ebenezer wash house or to the Jancitsky's, because then I knew it was private and nobody was listening in. We'd count the days to the end of school, and when the date came near that you were to arrive, my ears were tuned to Dad's diesel engine, and I would run to see if it was him. Finally, you would arrive, and we were anxious to tell you all the things we had kept to ourselves for several months. However, we would sit around the Refei table, usually at supper time, and you would be so excited, telling us about this or that, this exciting trip, or that person came to know Christ as Savior. And in all the excitement, we kids would silently look at each other and agree to keep our problems to ourselves. It just didn't seem right to tell you what a rough time we were having when you were so excited about what God was doing in the tribe. We were just soaking in the sight of you, feeling safe and whole and right. The worries faded away a bit, and life was manageable again.
Do you remember how I always cried when we left the Indian tribe before heading back to school? The emotion was me gearing up for what it was going to take to survive. It wasn't all bad at Via, but life is awfully hard to handle without someone you trust to help you sort things out.
As I grew older, the hardest thing was knowing that you had problems of your own, and that you couldn't tell anyone. That would mean being disciplined or ridiculed, or drilled in front of a room full of judgmental, angry men. To protect you, I carried the burden, again, silently. I just couldn't understand how a Mission board that was all about saving souls could sacrifice the well being of the souls it employed! There was no sense of share your burden, get Godly counsel, get help with your problems. It was ALWAYS discipline, always harsh, and always devastating!
My senior year, I cried, it seemed for the whole last month. I was so emotionally unprepared for the next phase in my life. I had great friends, and had figured out how to live in that environment...I didn't know the slightest thing about making decisions for my future. I was scared, and never more alone as I started college. I'm thankful you were there that first year. I made some great friends that first year, and I remember feeling so strange about sharing my feelings, or having an opinion about something. My friends shared their feelings, their experiences so freely, and I struggled to get beyond "I'm an MK." I couldn't really even say what that was because really, that didn't say much about me, but more about what my parents did. I always felt like I had to have an answer- a definite plan, even though really I didn't have a clue. It took me a long time to just be able to say, "I'm not really sure what I'm going to do" or "I don't really know."
So eventually, I finished school and became a teacher. I loved teaching, but the main reason I chose to be a teacher, and not a doctor, was because I wanted to stay at home with my kids. I wanted a family and somehow, being a physician, with that much debt and that crazy schedule just didn't seem to fit what I felt most strongly about: Kids belong with their parents! When I became a mom, I just couldn't imagine sending my son away to a boarding school a thousand miles away from me to be raised by "God-knows-who!"
Then, God saw fit to give me a daughter, and I thought, "wow, what a special thing this will be." And in the same instant, at that 20 week ultrasound, they told me that my daughter would not live. And that day I cried. I cried for the little girl inside me. I cried for the little girl inside myself. I just wondered, through my tears, how many more things God was going to ask me to give up! I grieved for the relationship that had not developed fully with my parents, the result of too much separation. I grieved for the relationship I would not have with my daughter. People said to me, "Your faith is so strong. You so easily accept the suffering God allows." And I would think, "they don't know the half of it. My whole life, I've given up, given up. I'm tired. But what choice do I have?" The only thing that is certain is God's presence with me. The only thing that I know without a shadow of a doubt is His love for me.
Thinking about what comes next, I have to wonder if the years you spent serving the LORD under the leadership of NT was worth the price you paid. I feel sorry for you, that you never experienced the joy of serving the LORD together with other people who had as much concern for your soul, and the souls of your kids, as they did for the souls of the lost. I'm sad, and I'm angry, and I'm mortified at the way my friends and family have been treated. It's shameful and disgusting and evil. Thank God that He can do something with the terrible messes we make. That's our only hope right now...
I love you, mom!
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