The following is an exert from chapter 6 of the book Missionary Guidebook For Ladies by Mindy Bush
(Photo is from our first furlough – Lydia, Adri, and Jo singing in a church)
Some missionaries don’t do furlough. They don’t like coming back, setting up another house, traveling to churches all over the country, and leaving the ministry behind that they have worked so hard for several years. However, furlough isn’t about your own comfort and needs. There are many good reasons for furlough, but one of the most important is so your children can become comfortable in the USA. We like to say they are “bicultural,” but they really aren’t if we don’t take the time to allow them to get to know their home country. They only really know one culture if you never come back long enough on a furlough for them to adapt to the USA! When a MK has not had the opportunity to be on furlough, they come back to the USA for college and feel like they are in a foreign country. They are all alone when they go through culture shock. The parents are thousands of miles away. People talk about how weird MK’s are, but it doesn’t have to be this way! Parents can help their kids on furloughs to prepare them for this big step in life!
Preparing them starts on the mission field! One of the biggest reasons MK’s may be weird is because they don’t know how to relate with people. The parents were too afraid to let them have friends. Just because you’re in a foreign country doesn’t mean they shouldn’t go out and play with other children. They need friends, and they need to learn the language. It would also be very sad if they lived there and couldn’t learn the language because they weren’t around other kids. Our daughter, Lydia, became best friends in Argentina with a girl named Mijhan. Their friendship brought our families together where I discipled her mother and Jeff the father and soon he became the pastor of the first church that we started.
Take them to parks where other children are out playing. Plan play dates with other mothers from that country. If you have American teammates, it’s tempting to always want to hang out with them, but you must intentionally try to build relationships with the nationals as well!
If possible, put them in a school, but ease them into it if they’re older! Help them to learn enough of the language that they don’t have to start grades below their peers or they get frustrated and hate it because they don’t understand. If they are in a school in your country, you must prepare them for when they come back to the States. Make sure they know how to read and write in English and know some US History. They should understand inches, yards, feet, pounds, miles, Fahrenheit, etc. They should know the names of the states, their abbreviations, and capitals. You can also plan on taking advantage of furloughs to show them different areas of the USA. They don’t just have to read about the Grand Canyon or the White House; they can visit these places!
Teach them the basics of running a household. If you have a houseworker who does everything for your child, your daughter will not learn to keep a home. I always told our houseworker that she wasn’t allowed to clean my kids’ rooms. They had to be responsible for their own messes. Work with them on housekeeping, meal planning, grocery shopping, etc.
When you are back on furlough, be around your home church enough so that your children can make friends stateside. They need these connections, especially as they get older. They are most likely not going to stay in your country for the rest of their life, and they need to be able to feel that America is also home. It is understandable that you must travel to report back to churches, but if your husband can go alone, you can help your children get to the youth activities and other events going on so they can feel part of their home church. This is one reason why furlough is so vitally important for your family, but this purpose for furlough can be totally destroyed if you are never at your home church where they can put down some roots. You want them to want to be in church when they come back as a young adult so help them build relationships there!
When you are on furlough, teach your child things they may not be able to learn overseas – how to get a job, how to drive, use an American washer/dryer, pump gas, budget, open a bank account, file taxes, etc. If your kids are younger, help them to experience the differences in America that were so normal to you! Our girls were fascinated with water fountains on our first furlough. They had never bought a soda from a soda machine or been through a drive-through! I really didn’t think about these basic things being so new to them until we did it! They were scared to death of the automatic flush on public toilets. Furloughs are good for them to learn these parts of America, simple as it may seem. Many MK’s can jump on a subway or a public bus and get down to the mall on their own, but when they get to America, they may not know how to do some of the things teens their age are doing everyday, just because they aren’t available in their country.
