FLINT, MI – Involvement in missions has always been close to my heart. At an early age I went with my mother to her missions meetings, watching and helping the ladies do overseas mission projects. I wasn’t Southern Baptist at the time, so we did things a little different, but still my appetite for missions was stimulated.
When my daughters were little, I homeschooled them, and the curriculum I used for them was highly permeated with missions. My youngest daughter, who was about 5 at the time, got to listen to a story from a different country each week. We would find the country on the map and put a sticker on it. We would do various activities to learn about that country, and we would also pray for the different countries each week. Her favorite stories were about Asia. At about that time we started hosting international exchange students. We hosted four girls through the years. One of our exchange students was from Japan, and our daughter ended up being an exchange student herself for a summer in Japan. Growing up the girls were also in Mission Friends, and in Girls in Action (GA). It was in GA’s that our youngest daughter learned how to eat with chopsticks and she loved it. I could never get the hang of it myself, but she mastered it.
Needless to say I was not very surprised when she felt the call to missions herself, and of course, it had to be Asia. Many people ask me how I could let her go away from home for twelve months. They would ask, “Are you worried about her?” or “I bet you really miss her.” Truthfully, I knew she belonged to God, and He was much better at protecting her than I was. The Bible says that children are arrows, and arrows are to be taken out of the quiver and shot, not remain in the quiver. I’ve always felt we were raising our children to serve the Lord. Through the years we’ve tried to involve them in our ministry, as much as possible. God has been very gracious to us and we have been allowed to see all four of our children serving the Lord in some way, with our youngest passionate about international missions.
That same daughter is now married and she and her husband both feel God wants them back on the mission field in East Asia, so international missions will become even more of a beacon in our family. For this reason I have left out her name on purpose. We will experience something new though, as we have never had grandchildren in another country before. We will have to learn how to use social media better in order to keep a close relationship with them. We will also, Lord willing, be able to experience missions in a new country since I’m sure we will be going to visit them and see their work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margaret Marcus and her husband, Jim, serve together in the Genesee County area. Jim is the DOM of Genesee Baptist Association. They also serve as Pastor and wife of First Baptist Church of Clio. Margaret leads “The Connection,” a group for pastor’s wives in the Genesee Association who meet together regularly. She has also served as a trustee for the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary for the past 8 years.