The MK in the Room

I can’t say I was necessarily looking forward to this. I was set up to share with a church’s missions council and I was nervous and out of practice. But I had asked Jesus for an opportunity to encourage this team even as I shared about what we are doing in ministry as those who provide “care” for global workers, and I was leaning into trusting that he would do that.

I shook with nerves, I mixed up words, it was all a blur, but I was asking God to be present among us and that we would have some sense of “being the church” by the end of my 30 minute presentation.

As I wrapped up my time of sharing and asking the team to pray for us to a) double our monthly financial partnerships, b) recruit faithful prayer partners, and c) connect with individuals or families that would host “watch parties” of the documentary - ALL IN – over the next couple of months, I sat back and asked: How can we serve you?

I was surprised when one of the members of the team, a young man who was new on the committee and this was his first meeting, said, “I think you already have.” And then, with great emotion he shared that he was an MK (missionary kid) and he desperately wished that what we do in Member Care and the pro-active care that we are seeking to put in place for missionary families had been in place when his family was in the field. He thanked us for what we are doing and affirmed how vitally important it was. Another new member spoke up: she and her family had served as missionaries for a number of years. “What you are doing is so important.” The entire team had an encouragement to bring, a prayer over me, a word from the Bible.

I can’t tell you how encouraged I was walking out of that meeting. It was like walking on the clouds, and I just thanked Jesus over and over.

But the reality is, our work is cut out for us, and we cannot accomplish it alone. We need community, sharing of information, partnerships, and lots of wisdom from the Holy Spirit.

In so many ways, we are in a hidden role in missions. It is not very glamorous: we don’t personally baptize new believers or facilitate community transformation in a foreign country. And the most important aspects of what we do we cannot even really share about except in general terms because we seek to be very careful in keeping the confidentiality and the security of our workers.

However, to be able to share in person with this missions council about what we do stirs up and reignites in me the passion we have to see healthy workers deployed, proactive soul-level care in place, excellent crisis responsiveness, and smooth-as-possible re-entry transitions - for the whole family.

As we hear of more organizations recognizing the need for whole-family care for missionary families, I am encouraged to think that there will be less MK’s in the room that have the same story as the one I met that night.