OK. If you read the blog yesterday (if not, you’ll probably want to go back and read it so you’ll know what I’m talking about) you know that we’re facing a dilemma. Our kids are in public school here in Brazil and our 10 year old brought home a science book with some stuff in it that we weren’t real happy about. So, what do we do now?
If I would’ve reacted immediately (which would have been in the flesh) I would have either ripped the pages out of the book, or taken a black permanent marker and drawn clothes on the naked lady and then put lines through every sentence that was instructing my 10 year old son on how to use a condom and the benefits of using birth control pills (He is only 10, you know!). And then I would’ve headed down to the school (book in hand) and given all those teachers and faculty a piece of my mind and told them how messed-up this was! And then I would have suggested that the books be removed from the classroom and... you get the picture, right? But something that a friend of mine told me about 14 years ago came to mind. He said, “always maintain your ability to speak into someones life.” That’s something that’s always stuck with me. What he meant by it, is that, don’t lose your ability to be able to minister to somebody just because you want to stick up for your rights. Because even if someone wrongs me and I decide to confront them on the issue, chances are that I’ll lose the ability to be able to “speak into them” because their defenses will up toward me from that point forward. So, I always needed to keep that in mind and weigh-out if it (sticking up for my rights) was going to be worth it (potentially losing an opportunity to speak into someone’s life) before I confronted someone about whatever issue I had with them.
So that’s what MJ and I need to think about. And here’s the questions we had to ask ourselves:
Question - Is going to the school and trying to change policy (when we’re from another country to start with, which puts us at a disadvantage right out of the gate) really what God has called us here to do?
Answer - No. As much as I’d like to change what they’re showing and teaching the kids, me trying to change this isn’t part of “the mission” that God has us on. Making disciples for Jesus is the reason we’re here.
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Question - Is this the hill that I want to die on? Is making a difference on this point worth risking making a lot of people mad and possibly closing the door for us to be able to minister the Gospel in the schools?
Answer - No! Having an opportunity to minister the Gospel in the schools is our main objective, period. Jeopardizing that isn’t an option.
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Question - Is changing this particular thing going to have any eternal significance at all?
Answer - No. In light of eternity, the fact that my kids (or any other kid) is seeing this isn’t going to effect anything eternally. As a matter of fact even if we did change this one particular issue, it wasn’t going to effect all the other things that our kids are bombarded with on a daily basis (i.e. advertising they see everywhere, the way people dress, what society deems appropriate in their values, etc.). So, to us, it’s not worth it because it’s not an eternal issue.
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With that being said (and the fact that we had to answer NO to all of these questions), it doesn’t change the fact that we’re still followers of Jesus that we’re still the parents of kids who are being exposed to this stuff. So what we feel we need to do is this:
-We need to have talks with our kids about this and give them the tools they’ll need to deal with this kind of stuff when they see it and hear it. We’re not always gonna be there when they’re exposed to it.
-We also need to be hyper-vigilant on stressing what God thinks and says about sex (which is awesome by-the-way... inside of the marriage relationship).
-We’ll probably go down to the school and ask that our younger kids be excluded from class when they’re talking birth control pills, condoms and pregnant naked ladies. For our kids, 10 years old is a little young to be that graphic.
-We’re going to propose (to the school) to let us teach a course on abstinence as part of the sex education curriculum. It couldn’t hurt to ask, right?
I know this has been a weird blog but I felt like I needed to write it (for me especially, it helps me process). Because as an American, I think that we’re always looking out for “our rights” and what we think “the right thing” is in our opinion. And the fact that we have the freedom to pretty much say whatever we want (freedom of speech) and that we’re empowered to do it because it’s our constitutional right to have an opinion and voice it, doesn’t mean we always should.
Now I know that some people are going to agree with us on this and some people will disagree, but that’s OK. Actually MJ and I went a few rounds on the whole thing, but the bottom line is this... what’s gonna be the best thing to help my family fulfill what God’s called us to do in Brazil? Do we put up a major fight for this issue? For us the answer is no.
What about the situation that you’re thinking about taking on? Is it gonna help you accomplish what God’s called you to do and is it worth dying for? Only you can answer that.
Love Ya,
Jim
PS- Now if God called us into political office or to work for the school board, then that would be a position where we could possibly change stuff like this, but He didn’t. He called us to be missionaries.
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