Ep. 5 - Raising Children on the Field

In this episode, Olivia and Sam share their experience raising third-culture kids on the mission field, discussing education, identity, the challenges of cross-cultural life, and the vital role of the local church in helping missionary children thrive.

Transcript

Intro 0:05

This is Missio Ecclesia, sharing stories from the mission field engaging ideas with charity and recovering the church as the center of missions just the center of missions

Sam 0:21

Ya Man, Ya Man.

Dean 0:23

I wish our audience could see your dance moves, Sam and Erik. It's impressive.

Sam 0:27

Yeah, I think we ought to go with that all the time. That's our new intro.

Dean 0:30

I don't know. I'm not sure Trenton's gonna want to stick with that as the new um

Sam 0:35

He's the one who made it, so..

Dean 0:36

Well, his AI skills are impressive.

Introduction & Family Story

Dean 0:39

Anyway, welcome to another episode of Missio Ecclesia. We're all together here in London recording our first live episode ever. I'm joined by Erik White, my co-host, and Sam is here with us today. But most importantly, we're joined by Sam's wife, Olivia, who's here to talk about raising third culture kids, aka T C K 's on the mission field. Olivia has been serving alongside Sam as a missionary among Muslims in Central Asia and Europe. She's worn a number of hats over the years, but one of the most important of those, of course, is the mom hat. So, Olivia, thank you so much for being here with us today.

Olivia 1:19

Thanks for having me. Thanks for the special reggae intro.

Dean 1:22

I know, man. It's special for sure. Why don't you start by just telling us a little bit about yourself and your family and the contexts where you've lived on the field?

Olivia 1:32

Yeah, so we have three kids. They are 21, 19, and 18. And they are all in school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. So we've sent them off back to back three years. That's right, go Vols. And we've raised them to be good Volunteer fans, even from thousands of miles away.

Dean 1:50

That's a parenting success.

Olivia 1:51

Yes, it is in our family for sure.

Sam 1:53

We think so.

Olivia 1:53

So we started out our time on the field in Central Asia. When we moved there, the kids were just three, five, and seven. And when they were a little bit older, early teenagers, we had to relocate and we found ourselves in Cologne, Germany, where we were until they graduated.

Dean 2:06

Awesome.

Erik 2:08

Man, I wish we could spend a lot longer time getting to know your family. You have a very great family dynamic, and we're gonna talk about that some. But your kids are also special kids.

Dean 2:20

You know, the first time that my kids saw their kids playing music together in Stranger Things t-shirts, that was when our resistance to the Stranger Things TV series ended. Oh, I'm sorry about that. No, it became a family favorite.

Olivia 2:34

I've heard the same thing about their debut of Adele when they were in uh a meeting at Prague.

Sam 2:38

Yes, that was an amazing performance. Your kids are great, and maybe we should have them on the podcast one day. That could be a great episode. So, Olivia, go back 15 years ago and tell us about when you were preparing to go to the field, when you and Sam first sensed that desire, that aspiration to go overseas. What questions or fears came up specifically around your children? And was there a moment when you doubted whether bringing your kids to the field was the right choice?

Olivia 3:14

Yeah, absolutely we did. I think that was one of the biggest things that maybe held us back from taking that step of obedience in the beginning. Education was really important to us, and we just could not see how we were gonna be able to figure that out on the field. I had the thing in my mind that they were gonna have to go to boarding school or something like that, and I just didn't want to do that. And so for me, that was kind of the thing that just kept sticking in my mind of, well, if I have to do that, then we can't do this. And um, just through a lot of prayer talking to other people and realizing that that really isn't an expectation that they weren't gonna have to go to boarding school, that we were gonna be able to do what we wanted to do pretty much with their education, whether it be homeschooling or national schools or whatever. And so then as we just began to pray about it more, we realized that this was something that the Lord was asking us to step into. And we just kind of had to put all those fears aside and just trust that he was gonna provide for their needs and ours.

Dean 4:02

Yeah, thanks so much for talking about that. Hopefully that perspective is helpful for folks that are at the point of praying about the possibility of going to the field with

Raising Kids on the Mission Field

Dean 4:10

kids. Could you tell us, Olivia, a little bit about what life looked like for you all when you first arrived? How did you help your kids adjust? I'm assuming there were some bumps along the way.

Olivia 4:22

Yeah, definitely bumps. So our kids were three, five, and seven. Um, when we made our way to Central Asia, we landed in a country we'd never been to before, never seen before. So we were all kind of in a bit of shock when we landed there. Everything was just really new. Our kids were excited about doing something new, but I don't think they really knew what that meant. We had been asked and challenged to put our kids into a national school, something that we didn't think we were gonna be open to. But spending our months in training leading up to our coming to the field, we were just praying through that and just felt the Lord give us a peace about it. And even though we didn't really know what that was gonna look like, and we thought, well, if these people are asking us to do that and they think that it would be the best thing for us, then we can try this. We can trust the Lord with this. And we did, and it was probably the hardest thing that we had ever done.

Sam 5:05

It definitely was. It was the hardest day of my life. And then the second hardest day of my life was the next day when we took them to school. It felt like that like every day.

Olivia 5:14

I remember going to visit the school. Our team leader took us to visit the school on the first day. We'd been there maybe three or four days, and the school was all dark, all the lights were turned off, you couldn't really see anything. And we got in the car and she was just crying and she's like, I'm so sorry I asked you to do this. And I was like, What are we getting ourselves into?

Dean 5:31

Had she put her kids in national school?

Olivia 5:33

She had not, but we were moving to a smaller town and they just thought, and we thought as well, that it would just be better if they were able to be into the local culture and were able to have friends and that that was going to make it easier transition for them. So we put them in the national schools there. We sent them on the first day. We'd been there maybe two weeks. We wrote the word stop and the word bathroom on their hand, even though we wrote the wrong word for stop, like a stop sign instead of don't do that. So they think that's really funny now that they understand, but they had no idea.

Sam 6:01

And our oldest E1, he would walk around with a dictionary.

Olivia 6:04

Yeah, he walked around school with a dictionary and just looking up every word that everyone would say. But they went in that first day with a lot of tears on the part of all five of us. But when we picked them up every day, they were excited and they were happy and they'd had a good day. And so we learned to just kind of measure it by their excitement that they came home with every day. And it got easier every day, and they adjusted pretty quickly, actually. And we were super thankful for that.

Dean 6:27

So, did you guys do national school the whole time? Uh, or did you adjust along the way somewhere?

Olivia 6:32

Yeah, we had to adjust. Somebody had given us advice along the way that we just needed to take this year by year and kid by kid. And so every year we would just kind of evaluate each kid where they were, what was going to be the best thing for them in the coming year. Our middle son faced a lot of challenges in national schools. He had a teacher that was just not very kind to him, and it really wore on his self-confidence. And we ended up pulling him out when he was in sixth grade. And that was a really tough decision because we were sending the other two to school every day and he was staying home in the house by himself. And it felt really difficult to make that decision. But I think we felt like it was the right one. The Lord had given us a lot of peace about it. I think he would look back on that now and say that it was a really important moment in his life that just kind of helped him renew his self-confidence and just helped him kind of gain a perspective. He got into some neat hobbies that gave him some really cool opportunities along the way. He learned to shoot archery and he played the drums, which he still does today. So that was a huge blessing, but it was something that we just had to keep taking into account. I think there's a lot of pride sometimes that comes along with putting your kids in national school. And it can be difficult to make the decision to pull them out because you think it means that they aren't cutting it, or maybe you're not cutting it as a worker. And so I think we kind of just have to put that aside and just really consider what's the best thing for my kid in this coming year for their education, for their mental health, for their well-being, and just take that to the Lord and have confidence in whatever he gives you peace about.

Dean 7:58

How long did E1 stay in national school?

Olivia 8:01

He was in national school until 10th grade when we had to leave the country. So yeah.

Dean 8:05

Yeah, that's all super helpful, Olivia. We also raised three kids on the field, and so I get that things like national schools can be hard. They're not for everybody. There's really not a one-size fits-all approach to education on the field for our kids. And certainly culture and education environments can really have a shaping impact on our kids on the field. And so I'm curious. Your kids are going to school every day, at least up through uh sixth grade. It's a Muslim culture. All the kids at school, I assume, come from Muslim families. What were some of the things that you and Sam did to sort of intentionally be sure that your kids were growing up with a healthy sense of their own identity, even as E2 sort of had that uh critical point there in sixth grade where he was struggling? What were some of the things you guys did to help shape their identity?

Sam 8:58

And yeah, I'm glad to go ahead and jump in on that one. You know, raising them in that context, it really made the importance of time around the word so I mean it's critical anyway, like in any family, every Christian family needs to prioritize the role of family devotions and family worship in their lives. But one of the things that we realized early on was they weren't gonna get it in children's Sunday school because there wasn't one. They definitely weren't gonna get it at school where they were going to school with other Muslim children. If they were gonna get it, they were gonna get it from us. That weighed heavy on me. And I struggle with discipline sometimes, just being straightforward in my life. But with family devotion times, the weight of the universe and eternity and all of those things was ever weighing on my heart. So we were pretty consistent with that. And so it started at seven o'clock in the morning, gathered around the table every morning, spending time in the word. When they were younger, of course, super guided, not very long. But then as they grew up, it became longer. We used a great little book called Long Story Short to walk through the entire Old Testament. I think we went through it twice with the kids, and then as they got older, we kind of transitioned to this place where they were reading the text, and then when we would get together, then we were all talking about it and so forth. So I was just so critical, was pouring into them every day. But then also mealtimes and just opportunities to debrief the day. We never wanted to take the inputs that they were getting for granted, or that, you know, we could go a day and just think, ah, it's probably okay. There's probably nothing we need to debrief today. We were just always asking questions. What do they teach you today in your social studies class?

Dean 10:42

So, what kind of stuff would come out? Can you think of some examples there in those debrief sessions over dinner?

Olivia 10:48

Not anything specific that's coming straight to mind, but especially once we got to Germany, they were just bombarded with things in a different way than they never had been before. Um, you imagine we've got these teenage boys who've grown up in a city in Central Asia where we didn't really wear shorts or anything. And we go to Germany and we've got women bathing, you know, topless in our neighborhood. And so it was just kind of a shock on all the senses. And and that was the same at school as well. And so I think that one thing we tried to do was just try to bring up every topic with them before somebody else had a chance to bring it up with them. And so nothing was off limits, and we just talked about literally everything. And I think that made them bring a lot of questions and feel like there was an openness that they could they could.

Sam 11:31

Certainly politics would come up, Middle Eastern politics, uh, American politics, and so forth. And just, you know, helping them to have a more balanced understanding of all of those things.

Olivia 11:40

Yeah, and I would add too, I remember somebody asking us when we first went on the field, well, are you taking your kids with you?

Sam 11:46

And I was like, what did what does even that question mean? Like, what else am I gonna do with them? You know? We thought about leaving them here with the neighbors. Will you take them? You could have asked that person, you wanna you want to take them?

Olivia 11:59

But I guess people do think that sometimes, like you're going to a hard place, like how are your kids gonna make it there? And I just refuse to believe that God didn't intend for our entire family to be in Central Asia and that He was gonna provide everything they needed for life and godliness. And it was gonna be very different from the way that we grew up, and sometimes that's really hard as a parent to deal with. But I believe that we were all called to go there to do this work, and he met that in specific ways for them. And I think in our kids' life, it was the local church in the city where we were, it was just an incredible blessing to them and people in that church that they still reach out to today when they're struggling with something really hard or have a question and just the relationships they formed there, the opportunities they had to serve and be poured into was just an incredible blessing from the Lord in their lives.

The Local Church and Third-Culture Kids

Olivia 12:44 Erik 12:44

There's been multiple churches that have been near and dear to your family that have been vital. You just talked about that. So you can talk about that more. Talk about the churches that you've been a part of and maybe go into more details of um what they meant for your kids. Would you help us think through the question of did you ever feel like your kids were missing things they might have experienced in the church in the American context? Yes, no, why not? How did you wrestle with that idea?

Olivia 13:12

Yeah, so our first church was our Central Asian church. It was a really small church made up of mostly Central Asians. There were no other kids. Our kids were the only people like them. They didn't really know any other believers that weren't adults. And that was kind of difficult in the beginning to kind of convince them that this was something real for them or like something that's worth it. This isn't just an adult thing or something like that. But I remember when our oldest E1 was maybe 10 years old, our pastor at the time just took a guitar and his son had had played guitar for our music and he was leaving to go to college and he just put a guitar in his hands and was like, here, you need to learn how to play this. We need music on Sunday mornings. And being a great oldest child, he went like that day and starts like figuring out the chords and he learned to play the guitar and he's still serving as a worship leader in his church today. And just because he asked this kid, this 10-year-old kid, to stand up and help lead worship, just that he gave him that opportunity was just huge for him to give him just a place to feel like he could serve and be part of the church. We always encouraged our kids to be there with us early to help and find ways that they could serve. They would fold the bulletins and put them on the chairs or they would sweep the floors and just try to include them in any way possible to make it be like they had a part in this and it wasn't just something that we were doing. There were lots of great college students in the church that really took our kids under their wings, especially our boys as they got older. They would invite them to come down to the church and hang out. They would sit there and share the gospel as people walked in and, you know, ask them questions and trying to get them engaged in that. And they would take them out on the weekends to go do fun things together. When we had to leave our country when we were um kicked out and had to relocate, our kids were just, they had to leave the only home that they knew and the only friends that they knew. And it was a really difficult time. And we got to our church in Germany and there was uh a couple of guys that played in the the worship team there. And the first Sunday, I think, just asked our kids, Hey, I heard you play music. You want to come meet with us on Saturday nights and just play music with us.

Sam 15:12

And they were much older than them, like 15 years at least.

Olivia 15:14

Yeah, married with kids, kind of people, you know, and they didn't have their Saturday nights free necessarily, but they met with our boys for hours and they would just play music together, teach them about what it meant to worship in a church, like think through the theology of the songs they were singing on Sunday morning and just poured their lives into them. And those relationships are just so special to our kids on the field. I think just knowing other people beside your parents that are believers, that are following the Lord, that are encouraging them, mentoring them, and pouring into them. The church has just been a huge blessing. I don't know how our kids would have made it, honestly, without the church in their lives. And we had lots of times when we were living in Central Asia and our kids were missing out on youth group and all of the things that people think that they needed. I remember we even had some counselors that came and said, like, your family really needs to consider moving. Like, I just don't think that this is good for your kids to be here and be alone. And I was like, they're not alone. They have the church. These people are pouring into their lives. And so there are times, obviously, where you, you know, you look on Facebook and you look on Instagram, you're like, I wish my kid had the things that I had growing up. I really loved that. But man, the things that they have, the experiences, the relationships that they make, the way that they're able to see the church be the church is just irreplaceable. And we've seen that as they've grown, as they've gone off to college and as they desire that. They desire the church, they desire to be poured into, they seek out mentors, and um, that's just from the experiences that the Lord's given them.

Sam 16:41

And that pastor back in Central Asia is still in their lives. Absolutely.

Olivia 16:46

Yeah. He wrote my daughter last week when she posted a photograph of a boy that she was with, and he was like, We need to have a talk about this young lady.

Dean 16:54

So that's so good. Yeah, and we started talking about national school, but national school, I guess, is where they got the language in order to be a meaningful part of that local church where they experience so much good.

Sam 17:06

Well, and in the church as well, I think. You know, so much of their languages came from interaction with people at church too.

Dean 17:12

Yeah. So this is a really maybe a silly question, a practical question, but how did your kids they all got into university? I know there's some scholarships involved in that. They grow up going to a national school in the national language. How do they learn to read and write in English?

Olivia 17:27

Yeah, well, they didn't like this part of it. But when they were in elementary school, we did summers of English. And so we would take a homeschool curriculum and uh we had really long summers in Central Asia, like at least three months. And we would do a whole year of English curriculum in a summer. But I mean, it was like two hours a day, right? This isn't like super hard commitment, and it kind of gave structure to our summers and was a really great way to just keep them learning and help them to read books and do things like that. I think we maybe did that for four years, and then after that, they kind of catch on, they read, they talk to people, they kept up and they were fine.

Dean 18:01

It works out.

Olivia 18:02

It works out.

Dean 18:03

Yeah, yeah. I remember all the fears that we experienced when our kids were in a national school just wondering like, how is this gonna turn out? Like, how are they gonna turn into normal English speaking reading writing adults? It it kind of works out. It does. It takes some intentionality, but it works out.

Olivia 18:18

When he too took that test, um I don't think we talked about the test, but one of the reasons we ended up taking him out of school was we were at a SHARE conference and they gave him a a test and he scored in the ninth percentile, and we were like, we gotta do something. Something is not working here. And I think we really second guessed ourselves and tried to figure out what we were gonna do. And I remember at that time a lady at the share conference said to me, Everything a kid learns by the age of 12, they can learn at 12 in six months. Now, I don't know where that came from.

Sam 18:49

And that's probably not a wise approach to your kids' education like usually, but but it just made me relax.

Olivia 18:56

I was like, this is gonna be okay. Like he's gonna read, he's gonna write, it's gonna be fine, they're gonna catch up. And you know, we started homeschooling and six months later he took the same test, scored in the 90th percentile. It was just a self-confidence kind of thing, but we can be assured that the Lord is gonna take care of them.

Sam 19:13

And so yeah, for our family, that is a current live experience. So we're in the midst of that as our son is 11 and came out of national school and experiencing very similar stuff.

Olivia 19:22

So yeah, there's so much fear that goes along with it. And I think the enemy would love to like make that be the thing that like stops us up or sends us home or makes us fear. But it's been our experience that we just continue to take it to the Lord, just ask him to help us have wisdom and what to do and just take the next step.

Dean 19:38

Praise the Lord E2, who scored in the ninth percentile, is now what, a biomedical engineering

Olivia 19:45

Pre-med, yeah.

Dean 19:46

Pre-med. Okay, all right. I was trying to make it more than it is, but I mean pre-medic.

Olivia 19:49

He would appreciate that. He takes organic chemistry as an elective, so I don't know who chooses to do something like that.

Erik 19:55

And I never took it. So...

TCKs, Trauma, and Current Research

Dean 19:58

All right. Well, speaking of education, part of the reason that we wanted to have you, Olivia, on the podcast today is because you're doing some research as a doctoral student at Southeastern Seminary on third culture kids and particularly on the role of the local churches on the field in helping to provide positive childhood experiences for TCKs. And we want to hear you talk about that more, but you're doing this research sort of in the light of the broader cultural conversation around trauma. Can you help us understand more of that conversation and where your research is seeking to fit into that?

Olivia 20:36

Yeah, sure. There's been a lot of research that's come out in probably the last five years or so on TCKs, which I think we're all super thankful for. I think that bringing TCKs to the forefront of that conversation is something that's really been needed. At least two of our kids have really benefited from specific member care towards TCKs and just kind of thinking of their mental health. So super thankful that that is happening. At the same time, trauma is getting this broader and broader definition. So if you look at like the DSM that categorizes psychological problems, what is that? The diagnostic statistical manual. Um so, like just diagnosing and defining psychological disorders. Post-traumatic stress and like trauma used to be 50 years ago or so, somebody that was directly involved in like war or some kind of really tragic situation. And now in the latest version, it's somebody that's gone through post-traumatic stress is somebody who knows someone that's gone through a traumatic situation, like war or something like that. Like they would qualify for that. They would qualify as being able to have post traumatic stress. So this word trauma is just getting this broader and broader and broader definition. And I want to say that our TCKs don't experience trauma because many of them do experience real traumas. But as the definition of the word is expanding and the research is coming out that's showing that TCKs have a lot of adverse childhood experiences. So maybe. Maybe that's emotional abuse and maybe neglect, not necessarily in the home, but maybe in schools. And we also have to remember that TCK is also a broad word, right? It's not just missionary kids, but any kind of expat kids. So that also figures into the equation. There's been a tendency, I think, of TCKs when they're re-entering back into the states or re-entering back into their passport culture to kind of take these two things together and think that they have themselves experienced a lot of trauma. And we've seen that, some specific scenarios of this happening. And something that's missing from the research, it's actually been done, but it isn't being reported as much, is that positive childhood experiences can negate these adverse childhood experiences. And the positive childhood experiences are things like having a mentor, having traditions, being part of a community, having something that you believe strongly in. And if you keep going down the list and you think about a local church and involvement in the local church, almost all of these positive childhood experiences are provided in the context of a local church. And so I think and I hope that research will prove that involvement in a local church on the field for our TCKs is just incredibly important for their mental health as they transition into adulthood. It's not going to be a one-for-one. It's not going to be perfect. There's still going to be kids that have struggles. But if we know that these things decrease the effects of adverse childhood experiences like mental health problems and things like that, why wouldn't we do everything that we could to help give them these positive childhood experiences? And if we know that they can be found in the local church and we're missionaries, like why shouldn't we be in the local church, right? Then why would we not make every effort to provide that for them?

Dean 23:41

And so your research is to ask the question does meaningful involvement in local churches on the field help provide these positive experiences for TCKs?

Olivia 23:52

That's right. So as we've been interacting and engaging with people that are kind of at the same life stage as us, they're sending their kids off, people that are maybe a little bit further down the road than us, just noticing people that have had their kids significantly involved in local churches and just seeing their kids thrive, walking with the Lord, being a part of a church. I just started thinking to myself, what is the thing that all these people have in common? And it's their love for the church and their desire to see them in the local church. I was listening to a podcast last week about Carl Truman's new book, The Desecration of Man. And he was on the podcast and he was sharing about it. And the ladies that were interviewing him said something about, what do we do about our kids that are growing up, you know, in this culture? And he said simply they should be in church every Sunday. That was his admonition. And, you know, it should be the same for us. We're not exempt from that. Even more so for us. Our kids are in a culture that's just totally opposite than them in most scenarios. Why wouldn't we have them every Sunday deeply involved in a local church, getting them mentors, giving them opportunities for community, for people that believe something altogether, they experience traditions together and celebrate together, mourn together. It's just vitally important.

Dean 25:02

Yeah, that's so good. Again, back to my fears, parenting fears, you know. I have been so amazed. You know, our kids are still young adults, they have a long way to go, and we'll see, but so amazed at how the Lord has used the ordinary means of grace in the context of a local church to help awaken the hearts of our kids to him. I mean, the church that we were part of when our boys were teenagers on the field was the most mere church that you can imagine. There was preaching, there was Bible reading, there was prayer, there was a fellowship of the saints, but it was no frills. And they came to love it and it became a massive means of grace in their life. And then the two oldest that are in the States now, they went looking for churches based on the criteria that they saw in that church that we were a part of as teenagers. So yeah, I'm so thankful for you know the local church's role in their lives. Okay, so how are you doing the research?

Olivia 26:02

So I haven't started the research yet. I'm still in my phase where I'm preparing the surveys and things like that. So what it will be is just a survey that goes out to parents and kids worldwide, just kind of surveying them and just asking these questions. Were you involved in a local church? To what extent were you involved in it? How has your transition been to the states and things like that? So just taking input from both parents and kids about those experiences.

Sam 26:24

And so when do we have you back on the podcast? When does the dissertation and then the book that follows drop? That'll be when we have her back on the podcast.

Olivia 26:32

I don't know. This is gonna be a while, guys. Sam took seven years. So as long as you give me that kind of leeway.

Sam 26:38

We had it was a rough seven years. I mean, we had sounds like an excuse. All right, it was an

Final Encouragement for Missionary Families

Sam 26:44

excuse.  

Dean 26:44

Sam, you have any final thoughts as we kind of wrap it up here? TCKs on the field, local church, national school, language.

Sam 26:52

Yeah, I think just involving our kids in the work is so important, recognizing that the calling that was given to us as a couple was also given to our whole family. And that when God leads you to go overseas and to serve among a people in a place where the gospel needs to go, because there is no church and there is very little gospel witness that just as Jesus promised in his commission, he first starts out by telling us that he is sending us with his authority, and then he ends it by saying that he's going to be with us always. And just knowing that we're going under the authority of the one who is sending, Christ, and that we are going with his presence with us always. He is always going to be with us. And we can trust him with our kids. He loves them more than we do. And so taking them with us, trusting him with them, involving them in the work. I used to love taking our kids on the road with me. We would go out and itinerate around the area and go and meet with an interested contact who wanted to hear more about the New Testament and Christ, just having them alongside me to be able to listen to the conversation, sometimes to even speak on my behalf because they could speak the language better than I could. It's so important, I think, to think about our kids in that way. They're not just accessories and we don't need to set them to the side.

Dean 28:22

That's good. Yeah. Thank you guys both. Yeah, and may the Lord bless you and your parenting and your kids and their growing up in Christ. And yeah, we need his grace. Friends, that's it for this episode of Missio Ecclesia. Thanks for joining in. Please help us promote this material if you think it's helpful by liking, commenting, and subscribing.

Sam 28:44

Yeah, and that way people can help find it.

Dean 28:46

That's good. And is the Reggae music gonna send us out?

Sam 28:50

I don't think so.

Intro 29:04

This is Missio Ecclesia. Sharing stories from the mission field, Engaging ideas with charity, And recovering the church as the center of Missions. This is Missio Ecclesia. Sharing stories from the mission field. Engaging ideas with charity. And recovering the church. This is Missio Ecclesia. Sharing stories from the mission field. Engaging ideas with charity. And recovering the church as the Center of Missions. Just the center of missions.