Being an MK Has Advantages!
Are MK's (Missionary Kids) an underprivileged group? A lot of people are afraid to serve in foreign countries because of what it could mean to their children.
Carol Richardson, former missionary in Irian Jaya with RBMU International and member of the on going Steering Committee of the International Conference on MK's, spoke recently to the staff of the US. Center for World Mission.
Many parents fear the dangers their children may have to face on the field.
Carol responded to this fear: "The fact is, there are not so many more dangers on the field as there are different kinds of dangers. This was especially brought home to me when we came home from Irian Jaya with four healthy, happy kids. We had lived in the malarial swamps of south New Guinea and people would stand back, almost in amazement at the reasonably easy adjustment they had and how healthy they looked. Yet since we've come back, two six year olds have been killed out in the streets right here in our neighborhood. In one year, two children were killed.
"If you're going to talk about dangers, you're in just as much danger living right here in the United Slates as you are in the jungles of New Guinea. And God has just as much power to protect in both places. The question should not be 'Is it safe?' But rather, 'Am I doing God's will?'"
Harry Conn, in Four Trojan Horses (pp. 17-18), makes reference to a study of the people listed in Who's Who of America. According to Conn, Who's Who in Who's Who showed that "it took 25,000 laboring families to produce one child that would be listed in Who's Who." That number dropped to 10,000 families of skilled craftsmen to produce one Who's Who. Among Baptist ministers the ratio was 6,000 in 1; Presbyterian ministers, 5,000 to 1; lawyers, 5,000 to 1; dentists, 2,500 to 1. Episcopal priests had the best recorct 1,200 to 1.
Oh. Except there was one more category. "For every seven Christian missionary families that sailed from the shores of the United States .... one of their children would be listed in Who's Who!"
Conn comments, "Surely this is a good example of Hebrews 6:10, 'For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love.' The person with a right motive of heart can depend upon the literal fulfillment of Matthew 10:29 and Hebrews 6:10."
You want successful children? Perhaps the best you can do for them is take them to the mission field!
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