Why do missionaries send their children to Boarding School?

By Ann N. Beardslee
May 2011

Often when a person watches the film, “All God’s Children”, the question arises: “Why did missionaries send their children to boarding school?”

The primary response is OBEDIENCE

Steve Prichard in his review of “The Lucifer Effect” states: “Any questioning or minority opinion was seen as a betrayal of God and the church itself. Nothing shuts down creative options or self-reflection faster than the certainty of absolute authority”

When I reflect on the reason I sent our children to Mamou, I know that it was because I was a victim of the theology that I learned as I was growing up and that I willingly ingested as my own in my teen years. I chose to “obey God” and be “saved”. I can still hear those magical, seductive hymns, such as “To the Regions Beyond”, “Fully Surrendered” and the altar calls to sacrifice all and be a missionary. I gladly obeyed. I thought I was obeying God. I believed that God answered prayer and that if we believed God and followed His will for our lives then “all things (would) work together for good”

During our first term in Mali, I began reading everything I could to try to help me be a good/effective missionary. I wanted to understand the language and the custom of the Senoufo people in Mali, West Africa so that I could be effective. When I read Practical Anthropology, and Eugene Nida’s books such as “ Bible Translating” and “ Custom and Cultures” I began questioning the stereotypical ways of other missionaries and began questioning the “absolute authority” of the way the mission work was done. We began changing some of the methods on our second term. We didn’t realize it at the time, but that was probably the reason we were moved by the Mission from our work in villages near Sikasso/Farakala to start a bookstore in Bobo-Dioulasso. This took us from the “frying pan to the fire” as we were asked to organize the local arrangements for the first Bible Translation conference by the United Bible Societies. During that conference, the information we learned resulted in our questioning the “absolute authority” of the Christian and Missionary Alliance and other fundamentalist’s idea that the original manuscripts of the Bible were “word perfect”. At that time, we did not know that this doctrine came into being in the mid- 1800s and did not accurately reflect earlier Christian doctrine.

We had obeyed the Alliance when they changed our mission field destination from Vietnam to West Africa. We had obeyed the Alliance when we sent our sons to Mamou. We had obeyed the Alliance when they transferred us from working with the Senoufo (and introducing a new way of doing missionary work) and appointed us to Bobo Dioulasso under the eye of the field secretary. Finally, there was an issue so obvious, we would no longer obey and the Alliance terminated our service as missionaries. We firmly believe that if we had known what was happening in the lives of our sons in Mamou, we would have left the mission field and not allowed them to go to Mamou but we did NOT know.

Up until the time we chose NOT to continue to obey the Alliance, I had believed that we should “obey those who are over you in the Lord”. When our children were small, I believed in obedience. I diligently taught them to obey. My method was to have a “time out” for disobedience. I tried to have as few rules as possible but I did require obedience. This did not require spanking (I remember getting angry and spanking on one occasion) I did teach them they needed to “be saved”. One of our sons sang himself to sleep before siesta and every evening after I had read bedtime stories to both of them.

This lifestyle of love and protection did not prepare them for Mamou. When our son returned home after his first four months at Mamou, he no longer sang. Later I learned about the severe punishment meted out at siesta time. Both of our sons had learned to obey so it was natural for them to try to obey at Mamou; to try to write the correct kind of letters home and avoid any hint of anything negative since the letters were censored and had to be rewritten over and over until only “fun” things were said.. They quickly learned to obey the Mamou authority’s edict to never tell their parents about the life of terror – the life of hell- that they were experiencing. They knew that we believed that we were doing the will of God. They knew that we had taught them to obey God. Our son aptly summed it up: My parents were doing God’s will so “This is what God has for me”

What punishment should a parent have for believing that they were doing the will of God? What punishment should a parent have for teaching their vulnerable little children that they were sinners? What punishment should a parent have for teaching their child that God is protecting them and taking care of them when all the while the child feels abandoned and unloved?

I cannot answer these questions but I can say that I was addicted to a destructive theology and I left it. Many who have been addicted to alcohol or drug abuse realize that punishment for their behavior is not the primary issue. They realize the pain they have caused others cannot be undone – it cannot be changed but they endeavor to center their lives in the Prayer:

“Help me to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and give me the wisdom to know the difference.”

In addition, a part of the AA program is to try to make amends to the persons you have harmed – in the case of missionary parents, it is their children! This we have done.

I am deeply grateful that my spiritual journey has led me a very different concept of a loving God. And the challenge of my life is to seek to live a life of compassion for myself, for others and for the world.

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