Who am I?

As business droned on, my eye was drawn to the large flip-over sheets taped on the walls of the meeting room, the fruit of some earlier activity evidently involving a very special class of young people: Missionary Kids. MK’s. Perhaps it didn’t completely describe the YWAM kids I knew – maybe more the children of classical missions who were sent home to boarding school. But, scribbled in colourful adolescent script, the following anonymous yet eloquent lines carried their own poignant message that missionaries anywhere could appreciate.

Who am I? Who is an MK?

I am a combination of two cultures
I am neither and I am both.

I am a six-year old who can’t wait to go away to school
and I am the six-year-old who cries herself to sleep the first two weeks of school.

I am the one who complained about eating oatmeal every day of my life,
and I am the one who orders oatmeal at the restaurant for old time’s sake.

I am the one who worries about fitting in
and I am the one who wears my native wrap around the college dorm and doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

I am the one churches make a saint out of
and the one other people pity and laugh at.

I am the one who has travelled halfway around the world
And I am the one whose home is in heaven.

I am the one who has seen the devil dancers
and I am the one who has seen the rock concerts.

I am the one who knows and understands
world missions, life and death, heaven and hell.

I am the one who has seen God work miracles
I am the one who finds it diffcult to pray.

I am the one who has spent only three months of the year at home
yet I know beyond question that my parents are the best in the world.

I am the one who can speak three languages but can’t spell in one.
I am the one who has devotions from two languages.

I am the one who has learned to be all I am expected to be
But still not sure of who I really am.

I am the one who has seen riches in one part of the world
and poverty in the other.

But beyond all these things
I am proud to be an MK!

I once read a statistic in Harry Conn’s book, ‘Four Trojan Horses’, that one in seven of the names listed in the ‘Who’s Who of America’ were MK’s. With this level of self-awareness, these MK’s seemed to be well on the way to finding their place in today’s multi-cultural world.

Till next week,

Jeff Fountain