My Childhood

I was fortunate to grow up in a missionary family. My dad is a pastor and Bible teacher, and Mom wears a dozen hats including secretary, counselor, home manager, and many others.

Growing up as a missionary's kid was a lot of fun! It meant that Christmas was, at times, spent camping on a white sandy beach. (What! Oh, please don't tell me that the song, "Dreaming of a White Christmas" doesn't refer to white sandy beaches?)

As an MK (missionary's kid) and PK (pastor's kid), I grew up doing all sorts of fun things like helping with evangelistic meetings by providing music from the age of 5 on up, and having SDA foreigners who came into the country stay at our house. (That was great fun! It meant my brother and I could camp out in Mom and Dad's room on the floor whispering and giggling for ages while the grown ups visited 'til late at night.).

It meant neighborhood baseball games, climbing trees (and falling out of them... not so fun), growing vegetables (no, weeding wasn't on my list of cool things to do), and selling them to all your neighbors for investment. (You wouldn't believe how well vegetables can grow, for two kids who don't know a lot about gardening, IF the produce was going to be sold to benefit God's work. We had all kinds of crazy things happen, like extra large produce and a mango tree which suddenly had so many mangos on it that it nearly split the branches, etc.)

It meant translating for doctors' teams when they came from the USA and Canada to do free medical care. (That could be rather funny when you are a kid. What if you have never heard of a spleen before? Sometimes, the doctors had to get creative in their explanations of what they were talking about so I could translate properly. Donning a long, white lab coat while being a "tall American", got me the label of "nurse", pretty heady stuff for the age of 11 or 12.)

When I was just a kid myself, I decided to run my own afternoon Sabbath School class in a village where there were no SDA's. (You see, kids and teens are not the church of tomorrow, they are the church of today. I am so glad people realized that when we were growing up, because it was ever so much fun to step out of our comfort zone for God and see Him use us, despite our age.) I went up the road from where my parents conducted a Sabbath School with about 100 kids and adults present each week. Mine was smaller, but I still had at least 25 kids and adults in attendance.

Growing up a missionary's kid meant having strange pets. Rabbits…ok not so strange, but what about a pet sloth, raccoon, squirrel along with the usual parrots and dogs? I think I was trying to recreate life aboard Noah's ark. Lots of my pets died, but no worries at least it wasn't because of my cooking!

One time the sloth dumped a bowl full of honey all over himself (yes we had given him the honey as he loved it) and got so sticky we had to hose him off. That night the temperature dropped (from 90 to 60) so he got pneumonia and died. I felt so bad! I also thought that if baby racoon liked one bottle of milk with banana why not give him two? Proves you can really die from over indulgence. I was sure my Dad could "fix the problem" and make him breath again. I was devastated to learn that Dad couldn't fix everything, though he truly tried to bring the poor Rakki back to life.

Then there was the parrot named Bobby who had grown up in a market and learned to laugh like a human. His cage was out in the mango tree where he was quite well hidden. He loved nothing better than snickering when someone walked past. There was more than one dignified conference president who was made quite self-conscious as he heard someone snickering at him, but couldn't see who it was. Soon the parrot would work himself into full out belly laughs as he gyrated on the swing at the top of the cage. At times, he would "laugh" so hard he would fall off and land on his back kicking his legs in apparent glee.

It meant participating in a large Pathfinder club, marching proudly through town with drums beating on Independence Day. (What, you mean September 15 isn't Independence Day in the USA?! At one time, I could sing the national anthem for Honduras far better than the one for the USA. I can still remember most of it, want to hear it? OK, OK, I'll quit humming.)

Growing up a missionary's kid meant we got to enjoy Master Guides (that is what comes after Pathfinders) while not being old enough to qualify. They would meet at our house every Sabbath night to work on their honors, class assignments, and eat. We did a 25 kilometer hike up and down a very steep mountain in one day. (Ever felt like your legs were pure jello? No???? Well, you've missed out!)

To wrap it up, I've since done all sorts of things, like canvassing (colporteuring) several summers. (Don't even get me started. I can really tell you some funny stories from those days!)I've been privileged to run online Bible studies, organize chat room Bible discussions for several past net meetings, taken teens on mission trips and preached evangelistic meetings in places like Costa Rica, Mexico, India, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Salvador, and Panama. I can tell you that there is nothing more exciting or rewarding than working with God! Give it a try! You’ll never regret it!