The January 2016 update has now been posted on the IHART website.
http://www.ihart.care/progress.htmlI see that Theresa did not answer any of the questions I posed to her. In fact, she didn't even acknowledge my questions.
Instead, the bulk of the update is actually an information/statistical piece about current educational choices that NTM missionaries are making for their children, the young MKs of today.
None of the general information was new to me, and I believe we have mentioned some of this information before, here on Fanda Eagles, but here is a synopsis of the statistics:
There are currently only three MK schools being operated overseas by NTM.
There are currently only 15 children of NTM USA members in boarding homes.
66% of NTM USA MKs overseas are being homeschooled.
30.5% of NTM USA MKs overseas attend various types of schools, but they live at home with their parents.
Only 15 MKs are staying in boarding homes! FIFTEEN! I believe these are mostly, or probably all, older kids. Not 6 or 7-year-olds.
Theresa Sidebotham's take-away on this:
"The availability of homeschool material has no doubt contributed to this change, as well as the increased awareness of the issues faced by third culture children and the need to support them better than in the past."
My response:
The availability of homeschool materials really has no bearing on this trend shift. Homeschool materials have been available as far back as 1956, when my mother ordered books from the Calvert School, and they were shipped by slow mail to Thailand, so she could teach me first grade. Later she used the International curriculum for my younger siblings, and I graduated from high school through the American School correspondence courses. I do not believe you will find one single NTM parent who will tell you that their children were placed in an isolated NTM school because of the unavailability of homeschool material! Oh no. Those parents felt pressured by the mission leaders to abandon their children to the care of underqualified or unqualified missionaries, because that was how they could prove their dedication to the cause of Christ, and their loyalty to the mission!
I really stumble over this phrase: "the need to support MKs better than in the past". The need to support them?? Don't you mean THE NEED TO
PROTECT THEM??? Arrgh!! The games played with word choices just drive me crazy! Don't you know? Surely you know! That today's parents keep their children with them so that they can protect them and nurture them in the way that God intended! So that they can be the ones to tuck them in at night, and hear the recounting of the day's highs and lows. So that they can pick up on problems and be the ones to intervene or advocate. Today's parents know that nothing else they will ever do on this earth is more important than the ministry that they have in parenting their own children! Surely you do know that! Surely everyone knows that! Including all the NTM parents who are currently making the right choices in regard to their children's education!
Here is the point I continue to harp on repeatedly .... because NTM's leaders are still not listening: Until NTM USA's leaders step forward and issue a formal acknowledgment of just how misguided and wrong the boarding school system was in decades past, the healing that is so needed in families will not take place. Missionaries and ex-missionaries from my generation look to NTM's leadership for their cues. Until the mission states decisively that it was WRONG to pressure parents to participate in the boarding schools that were set up, those older parents will continue to rationalize, justify, and make excuses for their choices. This does not bring healing. It continues to twist the knife into the hearts of the now-adult MKs who can still remember how it felt to watch their parents drive away or fly away, leaving them to cry themselves to sleep at night. Leaving them to cringe in terror at the sight or the sound of other children being beaten till they were bruised or bleeding. Leaving them to be manipulated and ridiculed. Leaving them to be molested or raped or sodomized. New Tribes Mission! If you have any heart, any compassion, do the right thing! Guide these parents into a path of repentance and redemption! Give them permission to comprehend the depths of pain that was caused by this system that left so many broken children in its wake.
Stop with the word games. Say what needs to be said. Today there are only 15 NTM USA (older) MKs in boarding homes, because today's missionaries finally, at long last, have the wisdom and courage needed to PROTECT their children!
My hope and prayer is that this new trend will produce a much different future group of MKs, 20-40 years from now. Adult MKs who will look back on their time overseas with much appreciation, as they live lives full of mental and emotional health, and accomplish great things.
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