Serving with the kids

Today we had the relatively rare pleasure of involving our kids in hands-on service. It is not that we stop our kids from doing things for others, or that they don't get that opportunity at school, but today both parents had things to do for others that were related to our jobs. Usually we manage to juggle it so that either one or the other of us is free to do something like that, but today we had a clash. Thankfully what we had to do was quite compatible with boys, so we were able to involve the boys with a little bit of effort. 

David went to the airport to pick up two new teachers for the school, he took our eldest with him. The main hitch was that they had to leave at 6 a.m.. I was impressed that our son didn't complain about that at all.

I took a train "down town" to join with the Japan Evangelical Missions Association (JEMA) office workers and my fellow editor to pack magazines for posting. It is largely a manual job and my 6 y.o. and nearly 9 y.o. did really well, working hard for 2 1/2 hours. They enjoyed being useful and I was so happy to see them being helpful. 

Here is another time the boys helped me out. They are "proofreading" my kids' newsletter. Checking it makes sense and the activities work out okay.

I once heard a speaker (Jill Briscoe, for those of you who've heard of her) tell missionary women to involve their kids in their work somehow, to prevent the kids from resenting the work that we do. That is hard for our particular situation. How does a teacher, an O.T., an editor/writer involve our kids in our work? When we've been on home assignment the boys often help set up our mission stand at churches we visit. Last time they did origami with some folk on the side too. But mostly I didn't push them (hey, I wrote about "pushing kids" recently . . . ), certainly not to do any performance stuff. That sort of thing has to come from the inside, I reckon. Pushing them to be involved would probably only result in resentment towards us.

I think probably, no matter what you do to serve others, you should involve your kids if at all possible. It is a great way to teach them with your actions.

Taking the bigger picture of what we do, I guess we have the ultimate of "involving your kids in your ministry". They can't but help be shaped by the fact that their parents are missionaries because they're growing up in a different country as a result. And to hear them talk sometimes, you hear (the younger two, anyway) their thinking is along the lines that "we are all missionaries, all five of us". 

But still, today was very satisfying – an opportunity to involve the kids in a more active way in serving others. I think (or I hope) that they encouraged others too, by their willingness to help out.