What does Missionary Kid Care look like?

There are a variety of areas where my team will be serving the MKs and their families...
1.) Conferences. ABWE hosts a dozen conferences a year around the world and they're continually having to look for individuals and churches to come and serve the MKs. These conferences are a time of rest and care for the parents, so people who are responsible and reliable to pour into and provide care for the MKs is invaluable. The MK Care Team will be the ones heading the middle school and high school programs at these conferences. The primary reason for this is that, just like kids in church Stateside, leader consistency is key when it comes to who is pouring into them. The dream is that we have a team of people who are able to support the conferences, who've had a significant amount of cross-cultural experience who can relate to and care for the MKs time-after-time.
2.) Care Trips. Everyone loves to be known. Even as a corporate employee, I enjoyed it when leadership would come from our headquarters, just to see how our operations were run. We've found that when relating to and caring for MKs, they value being known - specifically being known in their own context. Ideally, we will be able to go visit MKs on the field to get a glimpse of what their lives look like. This is beneficial for when we are doing [emotional] processing we as a care team will be able to validate and help them feel known.
3.) Processing. Living internationally is glamorous - but there is a dark side we don't often think of. Loss, and with loss comes a large amount of grief. Statistically, MKs/TCK (Third Culture Kids) move an average of 8 times before they finish high school. In addition to those moves, living cross-culturally has a high turnover - this means many friendships are prematurely ended.
4.) Missions Trips. A long term goal would be to have an opportunity to have our MKs serve the Lord in a different capacity than before. We would like to see MKs serving separately of their families, sharing the Gospel and serving those who don't have a relation with the Lord. This goal is farther off than the first three, but this was pivotal for me in high school and I want to see opportunities like what I had come to ABWE.
These are the primary areas that we are looking to implement in the next couple of years as an MK Care Team.
I am looking for monthly supporters to help in implementing these new practices. If you're interested in having a conversation on these, please let me know!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A TCK's Reflection; Brene Brown's Call to Courage

What Kind of Difference Do I Want to Make?

Thinking about Belonging and Being Known