I’m a missionary kid, a preacher’s kid, and I was homeschooled. I always thought that I was missing out on huge parts of life because I didn’t get to be in any school plays, have a boyfriend, or go to prom. Then I realized that I wasn’t really missing any more that you were. I bet none of you have eaten pizza with Thousand Island dressing instead of tomato sauce with corn topping at a Pizza Hut in Hong Kong. Or eat Coke flavored Jell-O in a city northeast of Beijing. You’ve probably never compared the amount of construction going on in Hong Kong to the construction in Singapore. I bought pretty expensive stuff in Thailand really cheap. How many airports have you been to? I’ve been in more than I can count. Seriously. By the time I was eight, I had lived in Long Island, Miami, Richmond, Virginia, Charleston, Summerville and Columbia, in South Carolina and Dallas. Then we moved to Xining, which is northeast on Beijing. That was where I first tasted boiled mutton. It’s actually pretty good. I could argue, in the local dialect with some Chinese kids who lived in our apartment complex, and I was pretty good at it. I promise I’m not bragging.
Living overseas for four major years of my life was fun. We spent all of that in Asia, mainly in Xining. We had plenty of other missionary friends there in the city. Without meaning to, I might lapse into Australian or British English. I sometimes think in Chinese.
I don’t know where you’ve been, or how many cultures you’ve been in, and I know that I have barely any clue what going to public school is like, or going on a date is like. You could tell me, but I probably wouldn’t listen. I like my life the way it is. I really don’t care about what I’ve been missing, but if you have never been out of your home state, you should care about what you’ve been missing.
Now get off your laptop and go somewhere!