Of Monster Trucks & Missionaries

The idea was a good one. They often are. The hitch is always in the execution....

See, the big plan was to buy this book, From Arapesh to Zuni and through colorful illustrations and delightful, nightly discussion, have my progeny fall so in love with these under-reached people groups that I would single handedly produce the next Hudson Taylor or William Carey. The problem is that my three boys are not the Von Trapp children or even the Duggars. By the end of the first page, two thirds of which is taken up by a picture, my three year old was off to find his Curious George book, the five year suddenly decided it was a good time to play monster trucks and my eight year old, while feigning interest in the pictures of the Arapesh I brought up on Google, was really biding his time until he could check Amazon for a Pokeman book he was hoping to buy. The second night the younger two didn’t even pretend to listen and the oldest listened only as a way to buy a few more minutes before the lights went out.

I don’t lay the blame for this failed experiment at the feet of my children...at least not entirely. Like most American pastor’s kids, my boys live a very privileged spiritual existence; even more so because they live in the South. They own approximately 400 Bibles and Bible story books, have access to the entire Veggie Tales library via Netflix, and have enough VBS t-shirts stored away to clothe a small orphanage. The problem isn’t their lack of knowledge of spiritual things, it’s their lack of experience in spiritual things. I can’t expect them to have a passion for missions just because we read a few pages out of a book every night. Its a good start, but its just more head knowledge. The only way my boys will catch a vision for seeing a dark world illuminated by the light of Jesus is to have them experience it.

Admittedly, my husband and I are limited by our kids’ ages and our one income budget, so extensive family mission trips are not necessarily in the picture at this season in our lives, but other things are. We have the privilege of being friends with several missionaries and their families whose ministries reach from Europe to Africa to India and most of them have children the same ages of our boys. My kids can know and identify with these missionary families, not just through their picture on our refrigerator, but through letters, emails, and Skype dates. As parents, we should be praying for these families regularly with our kids, encouraging them to think of ways they can be an encouragement to them. We can engage as a family in opportunities to serve our local community: taking old books and puzzles to the women’s shelter, participating in clean up days, collecting travel kits for the homeless shelter etc. In short, if we want our kids to understand and experience the importance of reaching their world, we have to do it too.

God reminds the Israelites in Deuteronomy to teach the things of God “as they go.” As parents, we can make the largest impact on our children’s spiritual lives by living out our calling as boldly as we can, including them in it day by day, moment by moment until they become passionate sharing the good news from Arapesh to Zuni.

This post was written for Brooke and Richard Nungesser's ministry newsletter, The Polish Nuns. Be sure to check out Brooke's blog: and2makescrazy.wordpress.com to find out about their family and their ministry in Poland!