The Perks of Being a Missionary Kid (Part 2)

      

A Missionary Kid, as the name suggests, is anyone born and raised by missionary parents. While a lot of aspects about being an MK can be pretty much the same as anyone else's, a lot can differ in several ways. Since our Missionary Kid journeys are never a one-size-fits-all type of story I do believe it is necessary, being an MK myself, to let missionary kids share their experiences. Some of us fall into the stereotype, some of us don't and a lot of us are somewhere in the middle, hanging on our own different scales. A sneak peak into someone else's concised experience is always a healthy practise that makes me and a lot of missionary kids realise that while we may share the same label, not all of us end up fitting into the ideal "Missionary Kid" box and that's completely alright.

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      My name is Asha Gillette and I am an MK (missionary kid). I am American but I grew up in New Delhi, India. Being an MK is definitely an adventure. Our lives are very different from most peoples’. It has plenty of challenges but there are also many very positive things that come along with it.

      In my own life, there have been times where I was very frustrated with being an MK because of the hard things I had to go through. Many of my friends growing up were other MK’s and part of the missionary lifestyle is moving around a lot. As a result of this, people came and moved away so much and I had to say so many goodbyes which was very hard. When I left India after graduation, I had to say bye to so many people because they will be living halfway across the world from me. Another challenge is that sometimes people in America just don’t understand what my life in India is like. Also, going around to churches when my parents presented their ministry and answering people’s questions about India was always hard for me. On top of that, there are many adjustments I have to go through now that I am back in my “home country”. These challenges are all things that almost all MK’s have to go through.

      The main challenge for me, however, is that no place ever feels completely like home. New Delhi was my home in many ways. I had so many amazing friends there that I love so much and I grew up there so it feels familiar. However, I always felt that I was a foreigner. Every time I walked out of my house Indians would stare at me because I look very different and I never really felt like I was Indian or part of Indian culture. India could never fully be my country. Then, when I visit the United States, I always feel out of place. Yes, I am American and I have family here. But since I didn’t grow up here, there are some things that I’m not fully aware of. This sense of not fully feeling at home anywhere is the biggest sacrifice we as MK's have to make, in my opinion. Being an MK can be really hard and can really get you down. When I feel that way though, I try to remind myself of all the positive things that have come of it.

      Despite the challenges, I am thankful for the type of childhood I had. Growing up in India taught me so many valuable lessons that I simply could not have learnt here in America. In India there are so many poor people on the street that have absolutely nothing. Seeing all those people made me very thankful for what I have. It made me realize that having a huge house and 3 cars and all that really isn’t necessary. I think growing up in India taught me to be content with the simpler things in life. I know for sure that growing up in India also really helped me grow in my faith because I had to rely on God more. All throughout my childhood, I went to an international school and I had friends from all over the world. This gave me a broad worldview. It taught me to appreciate many different cultures and to see the good in all of them. It also gave me valuable skills in relating to people different than myself. I am also blessed by amazing friends from all over the world which is something not many people can say they have. In general, growing up in India helped me know so much more about the world and gave me an understanding and a maturity that most people my age simply don’t have.

      Being an MK is an adventure. Sure, there are plenty of challenges along the way. But most good things in life are like that. Gold wouldn’t be as magnificent as it is without the fire that refined it. God often puts us through trials in our lives so that we can become more pure and holy in the future. You can never become good at a sport without putting yourself through hard training. Being an MK is no different. I have learned to find beauty in the ashes and now I can say with all of my heart that I am thankful and blessed for the way I grew up. I trust in God’s plan and I know he is going to use it for great things in my life.

Asha Gillette, 18 //

      Being an MK comes with advantages and disadvantages; you experience things you would never have dreamed of experiencing, you meet people you would never have dreamed of meeting but you also say goodbye to more people than you could have imagined. I've been an MK since my parents brought me over to India from New Zealand when I was 5 months old.
I love the country I have called home for 17 years.

      The food is amazing. I understand the culture (though I do kick myself once in a while for not learning Hindi properly). The people are so kind - I've made 'friends' with the security lady at the gate of our society and the vege walla down the road. This is all a bit of a contrast to the other country I call home - New Zealand. There I have all of my extended family and some of my favourite scenery but I feel a bit out of place there.  There was this time when I was back in New Zealand and my mother, grandmother and I were going around town doing jobs. After popping into the second hand shop, mum gave me a prescription and asked me to go to the pharmacy to get Grandad's medicine. When I walked in and I had no idea what I was supposed to do so I went to the counter and told the lady there what I needed. The look I got said, "Why are you here? Wht are you not at school?", and all I really wanted to tell her was that I actually go to school in India and it's summer break right now. Though I did not say anything, I left that pharmacy with a little reminder that, though I look like I should know how everything works, I don't.

      Though many people associate MKs and TCKs (Third Culture Kids) with moving around a lot, the furthest I have moved is from one side of Delhi NCR to the other side, but that hasn't stopped the goodbyes. I have been to the same school since Kindergarten and have seen more than half the school's population rotate. As each farewell comes around and people leave, I have managed to emotionally detach myself to cope. An article that I read recently talked about a lie which TCKs need to stop believing, that "Everybody always leaves". The article identifies how TCKs react and cope with farewells and how we can embrace farewells a bit better. As I read the article, I saw myself in what the author was saying; I could think back and see how I have been 'avoiding' farewells. It was only until recently that I have managed to somewhat accept farewells and doing so has been made a lot easier with the help of Snapchat and Facebook.

      A new farewell challenge is coming up around the corner for me as I approach my graduation in May (this was written in Feb 2018). I will be going back to New Zealand leaving behind my friends and places I know so well to study to be a teacher. I know this will be the hardest farewell. I'm not sure how I'll cope but I know that God will be there with me through all of it.

Sophie, 18 //

‘For answering the call of Jesus is the greatest adventure, the deepest romance and the most fascinating journey of our lives.’
-Os Guinness

      As I read the above quote written on a memento that my Dad had received with our family picture on it, a series of thoughts came across my mind. Being a missionary kid has been and still is a great adventure indeed with one small exception to the quote, we are straight away pulled into the adventure without directly answering the call of Jesus. At one end of the spectrum, it gives me the privilege of experiencing involuntary benefits and at the other end of the spectrum, I am forced to live out the predicaments associated with this life without any direct responsibility for the decision. Although this sort of lack of direct responsibility can be encountered in any parent-child relationship where the child has to be part of the life decisions made by his/her parents, what is unique in being a missionary kid is that our parents have answered the call of a person and not just any random adventure. A person can make a whole lot of a difference even in our humanly experiences, much more would it carry weight if we were to serve a person offering an adventure. And that makes the whole difference I guess. Being a missionary kid, by the very logical outcome of the tag, is a unique manner in which a person can involuntarily be introduced to the person, Jesus.

      There were probably three phases in my life in terms of how I perceived myself as a missionary kid. When I was a kid, I always was proud and fascinated to call myself a missionary kid. I was proud of my Dad’s job and the bigger family we were part of because of his job. Meeting new people across cultures is a unique thing that I could talk about among my peers. Then there was this teenage phase in which I started to feel a tinge of banality in mission work. This was the time our family moved from Chennai to Delhi so I was adjusting to a new place, culture and language. It wasn’t that I disliked missionary work, it was just that I wasn’t able to directly relate my social life to what being a missionary kid demanded. And then probably the most unexpected turnout phase was when I came to university. While I was still growing spiritually through my college fellowship, last year which was my 2nd year of college, I got to read ‘The Book that made your world’ by Vishal Mangalwadi ( I would recommend every missionary kid to read this book). As I read the historical achievements of God’s global redemptive plan, I was able to correlate the crucial role missionaries played in it. This gave me a new perspective while discussing with my father about his tours and experiences. For long I had lived out an ignorant life, never knowing that the bigger family that I was part of, had shaped our modern world. To come out of this ignorance was a moment of epiphany which even now is shaping my thinking.

      The thing that I should always be grateful is for this grand family that I am part of. A family woven by God across cultures and history. Conferences, meetings, Bible studies will never be grow out to be cliché for me because of the mere joy of meeting people of the same family chasing the same adventure. And this is an adventure you will hear from any missionary kid, ‘Meeting new people, blending into cultures’.  After all the various phases and sub-phases I have gone through, being a missionary kid, I have come to terms with myself to say that I’m proud of my parents for having answered the call of Jesus, drawing me involuntarily to the greatest adventure, deepest romance and the most fascinating journey of my life.

Andrew Martin, 19 //

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Acknowledgements: I am extremely grateful to Asha, Sophie and Andrew for expressing with such energy on how it feels to be the child of missionaries.
To Sophie, who sent this write-up to me back in February, a month I stayed off blogging, and not only waited patiently for me to post this but also searched for another MK who could write for me, to Asha, who volunteered to send a write up about her MK journey to a complete stranger she'd most likely never meet and to Andrew, another penpal who agreed to write for a complete stranger (like Asha, again) and didn't back off despite my nagging reminders for a whole month, I am only proud to be a vessel of such heartfelt writings and do wish that somewhere down the line, we as missionary kids get to be heard more and judged less instead of the other way round.

For part one of this blog, tap/click here.