By Luke P ~
It's the weekend! Time to help pack suitcases, load the car with a projector and screen, leave town, drive for hours, stay with stale and lifeless strangers, return home to do homeschool during the week, and attend our own church. Repeat process.
This is how I remember what life was like for me until I was 10 years old. I was born into a Christian family, whose head of household thought he was called to be a Missionary for the cause of Christ. When my parents were in the process of becoming missionaries, they were provided with two options. They were told they needed help in either Togo or Ukraine. They felt "led by the Lord" to the country of Ukraine. This was in the early 90's, immediately following the collapse of the USSR. That's when I became a Missionary Kid (MK for short)
There are a few things that I would like to share about the traveling missionary salesman's life. For that first decade, I was raised in a baptist church in Florida. That church was our Home-Base, or our "sending" church. They did very little to help my parents cause, due to the fact that the church was run by men of faith and not business, and ran a very poor corporate model that eventually led them into what most current churches are experiencing now. Huge debt due to unreliable income. However, this is the place that I was raised in.
I spent most of time at this church any time the doors were open. The other days of the week, my sister and I were homeschooled by our mother. Once my parents made the decision to become full time missionaries, we spent far more time together as a family. My dad quit his job and started getting paid by our Mission Agency. During this time, my parents had a goal to raise money in order to support themselves while in Ukraine. The way they did this was by selling this idea to churches all over America, begging for monthly donations that would support my family while overseas.
Every week we were in a different church. My sister and I were indoctrinated with the textbooks from a very special and well known fundamentalist school in Pensacola Florida. During this time, family was my only consistent social connection. I rarely saw my cousins. My closest friends moved away. I met a lot of people but never made any lasting connections. To this day I speak to no-one from that time in my life. I never saw the effects of this life until I grew older. This lack of real social connection turned me into a naive and curious child.
Now back to the present, I am an agnostic atheist with not even a finger in the church. I live independently from my family but on good terms with most of them. They all have finally come to terms with the fact that I am unmoved in my beliefs.
This is how I remember what life was like for me until I was 10 years old. I was born into a Christian family, whose head of household thought he was called to be a Missionary for the cause of Christ. When my parents were in the process of becoming missionaries, they were provided with two options. They were told they needed help in either Togo or Ukraine. They felt "led by the Lord" to the country of Ukraine. This was in the early 90's, immediately following the collapse of the USSR. That's when I became a Missionary Kid (MK for short)
There are a few things that I would like to share about the traveling missionary salesman's life. For that first decade, I was raised in a baptist church in Florida. That church was our Home-Base, or our "sending" church. They did very little to help my parents cause, due to the fact that the church was run by men of faith and not business, and ran a very poor corporate model that eventually led them into what most current churches are experiencing now. Huge debt due to unreliable income. However, this is the place that I was raised in.
I spent most of time at this church any time the doors were open. The other days of the week, my sister and I were homeschooled by our mother. Once my parents made the decision to become full time missionaries, we spent far more time together as a family. My dad quit his job and started getting paid by our Mission Agency. During this time, my parents had a goal to raise money in order to support themselves while in Ukraine. The way they did this was by selling this idea to churches all over America, begging for monthly donations that would support my family while overseas.
Every week we were in a different church. My sister and I were indoctrinated with the textbooks from a very special and well known fundamentalist school in Pensacola Florida. During this time, family was my only consistent social connection. I rarely saw my cousins. My closest friends moved away. I met a lot of people but never made any lasting connections. To this day I speak to no-one from that time in my life. I never saw the effects of this life until I grew older. This lack of real social connection turned me into a naive and curious child.
Now back to the present, I am an agnostic atheist with not even a finger in the church. I live independently from my family but on good terms with most of them. They all have finally come to terms with the fact that I am unmoved in my beliefs.
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