Avoiding Idolatry

Idolatry is a strange word. It's a word associated with primitive cultures, with mysterious statues and dark temples, with pre-scientific societies. But here are the words of a TCK:

"I could not hope to hold my father's attention, to be the voice he recorded, his microphone trained on the purest sounds of Chokwe and Lungwe, tapes as big as dinner plates twirling. I found my mother at the clinic dressing burns and dispensing drugs to women coughing blood. These people in their wretchedness perfectly deserved my mother's care. She bowed with them, freckled hand on spongy curls, offered up a prayer for healing. If only I could do something to earn her touch. Because I could not distract my parents from their missionary service, I shadowed them. Their work became mine; their calling so big it overshadowed any puny need of my own. I understood when my father left the dinner table to greet this teacher or that pastor that I would have to share my parents. I cringe at my continuing need to feel significant to them, my need to earn degrees, win prizes and contracts. Sometimes I feel obsessed, as though I possess a deep well that needs constant filling with attention."

This approach where work takes over and constantly demands time and attention that belongs to children, God calls idolatry even when it is found in a Christian family.

In the TCK consultation held last week we looked together at the story of Hannah. Desperate for a child Hannah wept and prayed before God, promising that any child that was given she would surrender to God to serve him all his days. Her request was granted in an amazing way, and Samuel joined their family. It would be easy for Hannah to justify keeping such a precious baby. And yet Hannah put God in first place and gave Samuel up to serve in the temple at Shiloh. As the "TCK support team" we need to help families not to meet an unbalanced approach to work with an equally unbalanced approach - that the family must always come first! For putting anything before God is to make an idol of that thing, no matter how intrinsically worthy it may be.

The consultation drew together a multicultural international team. Altogether we represented more than 20 different countries, and a multitude of educational systems, German, Korean, Japanese, Afrikaans, Tagalog and everything in between! There are more than 600 children whose parents are serving in Asia and they use a wide variety of educational options. Some families are able to use international schools and boarding schools are still used, but we need to make more support available for non-traditional schooling options. Many of our families are working in areas far from other expatriates. For some of these families, schooling their children at home is one way of meeting their needs in a tough situation. We want to find home school tutors, teachers who are willing to live at a single location, and travel from that location to advise parents who are homeschooling their children. Over the next few years, we're going to need more and more teachers willing to work in this way. Please pray with us that the right people will come forward. We recognize that happy, healthy, holy families are better enabled to realise the vision to which God has called OMF.

Two days ago, Joshua decided to head-butt the floor. He'd been sitting for a while playing on the computer, stood up suddenly, felt faint, and fell forward mashing his lip on a metal door frame. We mention this because yesterday was Joshua's 13th birthday. In his birthday photographs, he looks as if he has done three rounds with Mike Tyson! It's terrifying to be the parents of a teenager. We don't feel old enough or able enough to take on this next role! I don't know when the last time you went shopping for a teenager, but trying to choose a present for Joshua was next to impossible. So armed with money from grandparents, Dad and Joshua sallied forth to do business with Singapore's shopping district. After 4 1/2 hours shopping, Dad was relieved to discover that Joshua didn't have much idea what he wanted either. He's a pretty contented sort of guy! So the money will sit in his room until he's decided what he needs it for!

With our love,

Steve, Anna, Josh and Aimee