Guest Post: Growing Up on the Mission Field

Today we have a guest post!  It was written by my friend who goes by the pen name Emma Greere.  We had an idea not, too long ago, to do a guest post on each other's blogs.  So here it is, enjoy!!

Growing Up on the Mission Field

My parents first told me that our family was going to Thailand to be missionaries when I was around four years old. We started going from church to church when I was five. So I have been in the ‘missions business’ for nearly my whole life.

When Kristin asked me to write this blog post, I wondered what I should write about. I do know what it's like to grow up on the mission field, but what do I say about it? Do I talk about the frustration? The times I hated Thailand? Should I reveal that much?

Frustration... if that's one thing missionaries knows it's frustration. For myself, it's been frustration with Americans. For a while I was kind of a bitter and judgmental person and I prided myself in knowing more about the world. Well, I say 'know' more, I'm still learning about the world. It wasn't until the day I read a book and the lesson was that everyone has issues. That's when I realized that not everyone is as 'all knowing' as other people are. Just saying that I know a lot about 'the outside world' I would be lying to myself. Because I don't. I really don't, I'm still learning about the world just like everyone else. Proud and full of myself... that is what I was. Gotta accept what you were before!

I won't lie, I had my moments that I hated Thailand. Growing up, I felt different from my friends in America. Because of the fact that I grew up in Thailand and that I was the 'missionary's daughter'. I wanted to be a 'normal American girl' like everyone else. I wondered what our lives would have been like if we had stayed in America. But now as I think about it, I would never want to go back and change things. I like living in Thailand, I like being a missionary kid.

The thing I am so extremely grateful for, is that I had amazing parents! During deputation (when we went around America raising money from churches) we got to go to awesome places and saw national monuments, historical landmarks, and got to go to theme parks.
Even when we came to Thailand, we went to temples and went elephant riding, we were tourists for the first few years we were here. My parents made me love Thailand!

Even though there was the difficulty of growing up different from the average American I'm proud to say that I grew up a missionary/third culture kid.
I believe that living in Thailand has made me who I am now.

Hope you enjoyed this!!  Here is a link to Emma's blog!  The post that I wrote on her blog is on there!!  Until next time, TTYL!!