From being a short-term missionary kid, experiencing missionary kids firsthand, being a missionary intern and hearing stories, there are many different sides to every missionary kid. Truthfully, the impact missionary kids can have on the community they’re in all depends on the type of child they are. Whether the missionary kid is introverted, extraverted, or even both, they can deeply impact their peers. Being a missionary kid affects the child in many ways, helping them learn more about the world, but also about the Word.
Before stepping into the field as an intern, it was always hard for me to know exactly what to expect. Because I have a hard time picturing things in my brain, I didn’t have a rigid picture of what missionary life would look like. The only real context I had came from listening to my parents talk about their own short-term missions. But going through my internship changed everything. I walked away with a vivid understanding of what it truly looks like to be a missionary intern – from navigating the heavy winter months to adapting to completely different summer activities, and discovering entirely new ways of discipling people.
Wired Differently: Lessons from the Field
Kids growing up in the mission field get exposed to many different cultures as they grow up. If you raise a child in the mission field, their brains are being molded to be more open-minded and accepting of many things, including cultural differences. As children grow up, they learn from the adults who are most important and present in their lives; these role models shape them into the adults they mature into. Because missionary kids grow up in the field, pre-exposed to all the struggles of life in that area and witnessing the daily realities of ministry, these kids are wired to think much differently than a child who didn’t grow up exposed to these things.
The Ripple Effect of a Playdate
These missionary kids grow up learning how to interact with many different kinds of people, learning that it’s okay to be confident in their faith and how to share the gospel the way God calls all of us to do. Essentially, these kids are being built into the next generation of missionaries if they choose to follow in their parents’ footsteps.
But either way, these kids will make an impact on the community whether or not they become full-time missionaries one day. How? Well, for starters, these kids are constantly interacting with the other children in the community. They might ask for sleepovers or invite a friend to have dinner. Those small things can start a whole ripple effect in a local child’s life, just from one dinner at the missionary family’s house. Whether it’s praying over the food or sharing a short Bible story after dinner, those little things, if consistent, can change lives forever. Just one playdate can lead to so many opportunities to expose a child to the ways God has blessed them.
I watched this exact dynamic unfold with one of the missionary kids I was living with. He formed a wholesome, beautiful friendship with a local boy from the community whose home life was entirely unknown to me. The missionary kid would constantly ask about his friend, wondering when he could come over next to play. Because of that simple, consistent friendship, the local boy was able to stay for dinner and even attend church with the family. Through the eyes of a child, a seed was planted, helping that boy come to know about God.
Every child and family is different, but with the help of your children, you can expand your ministries much further than you ever could on your own. Including your kids in your ministry expands your outreach—not just to the local children, but to their parents as well. Some parents naturally want to meet the missionary family before letting their kids come over to play. When parents in the community do this, it opens a brand-new door for relationship and outreach.
Grains of Sand and Big Sisters
Missionary kids don’t just impact future ministries: they impact current ministries, too. That is the big picture. But when you zoom in on that picture, there are so many little details, like when you zoom in on sand. When you look at all these missionary families and their kids, they are part of a vast landscape with so many moving parts. Just like a handful of sand, the naked eye can’t see all the tiny pieces that make it up from a distance. But once you take a closer look, you see all the different shapes and colors. Not one single grain is the same, yet each one is an essential part of what makes up the sand.
When I look back at the individual grains of sand from my own experience, I reflect on the adults who shaped me, too. The missionary family I lived with left an imprint on my life that I will carry forever. The wife of the couple impacted me in ways I never could have expected. She taught me so much about growing up and genuinely helped me learn how to be a good mom one day. She became like the big sister I never had, someone I could safely confide in and ask the tough questions I couldn’t always ask my own mom.
Everything I have seen and experienced will stay with me forever, and I thank God every day for it. I will forever remember the time I spent in those fields, and the adults, local children, and missionary kids will always be in my heart and prayers.
A Prayer for the Next Generation
When I close my eyes now and think about the missionary kids I left behind on the field, I carry a specific prayer for them in my heart:
I hope and pray that the Lord protects them from the unique struggles of the communities they live in. I pray that as these missionary kids get older, they truly understand how important their parents’ work is, and that they will feel called to help out, too. Reflecting on the sweet friendship between that missionary kid and the boy from the community, I pray that they stay close friends. I pray that the missionary kid can continue to be a safe space for his friend, protecting him, keeping that seed firmly planted, and helping to nourish that fragile seedling of faith.
Something to remember: whether you are a young adult stepping into an internship or a missionary family raising young kids in the field, is that God will use anyone He chooses to use. Young or old, big or small, boy or girl, He will use you wherever and however He has planned. When you have doubts and you don’t understand why you are in the situation you’re in, remember to turn to the Biblical evidence of God’s history of using the young to spread the gospel.
1 Timothy 4:12-13 (NLV) “Let no one show little respect for you because you are young. Show other Christians how to live by your life. They should be able to follow you in the way you talk and in what you do. Show them how to live in faith and in love and in holy living. Until I come, read and preach and teach the Word of God to the church.”
