The Positives and Negatives of being a MK:)

There are positive sides and negative sides to every way of life. Whether you are just a normal churchgoer, pastor, missionary, or missionary kid. Since I only know life as a missionary kid, I will share with you some of the joys and struggles we missionary kids go through. For instance, some may say that furlough is like being on vacation. Me and my siblings know this is not true. Being far away from home and always being in a different church with no friends can be hard. But, we also realize that we are blessed! There are so many special people that God brings into our lives along the furlough path. We know many wonderful Pastors. If you are wondering, no my siblings and I are not intimidated by pastors. In fact some of our favorite churches that we have gone to is where the pastor talked and made friends with us kids. We have so many friends who are members of the churches that support us. In fact, many of these people stay in contact with us. We also get to meet other missionary families. I have to say, missionary families are probably my favorite. They understand. It is so much fun to us to sit and just talk about our homes and how America is just weird! I love all of my missionary friends! Another great thing about furloughs is that we get to see so many different places! Last year, on my senior trip, I was talking with some of my traveling companions, and I was shocked to hear that they had only been to two states in America, never flown out of the country, and the first time they had ever flown was to Washington D.C on our senior trip! That was such an eye opener to me! When I talked about all the places I had gone, they were jealous! I can’t even fathom what it would be like to never travel. God has truly blessed me by allowing me to be a missionary kid! Another thing that we struggle with on furlough and life in general is getting our brains to go back and forth between languages. It is quite embarrassing to struggle finding the right word to use in a conversation. Mostly this happens to us when we transfer back to full time English. One time we had a big group of American teens come visit our ministry in the Philippines. We had already been back in the Philippines for a while after our last furlough so we were in all Cebuano mode. Well, when the teens started asking questions and talking to us, our brains just backfired. A couple different times, I had to ask my mom for the English translation of the Cebuano word that was in my head. There have been multiple times that this has happened to us while we are talking to people, but we have learned to avoid that word, talk around it, and ask our parents later for the translation. Another thing we have to be careful with is that many times we forget that American visitors don’t understand a word of what we are saying. Countless times my Filipino friends tell me to translate for our American visitors because I forget that they don’t understand a word. Oops! Though we all have struggles, God gives greater blessings. Instead of complaining, we can thank God for His goodness and glorify Him. What a great God we serve!

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