Top 5 Reasons Homeschooling Families Make Great Missionaries

Reason 1: You are flexible. 

One of the main reasons people homeschool their kids is because of the flexible schedule and lifestyle homeschooling allows. Mom and Dad are the bosses of the schedule. Seven hours of school a day?! Unnecessary! Locked into a rigid 180-day school calendar?! That’s for the birds. Homeschooling means more freedom to fit school around other life events. If you’re a homeschooler, you keep a schedule that works for you instead of being a slave to a schedule.

This lines up perfectly with missionary life. Missionaries are required to be flexible. We often work with non-Western people who don’t fit into Western 9-5 work schedules. Picture yourself lingering over tea with an Afghan mom while your children play late into the afternoon. Or joining a group of men going to the fields to harvest bananas in a remote village and bringing the kids along to learn about a hard day’s work. Flexibility is essential to missions. We never really know what adventures might await us from one week to the next.

Reason 2: You are innovative.

Homeschooling families love personalizing education to their children’s unique skills and abilities. Some kids are more active. Others are more cerebral. They just don’t fit in the cookie-cutter education system. So, parents get creative and teach their kids according to their unique needs. And if it doesn’t work, you try something new. You want the best for your kids, but don’t put them in a box.

Missionaries, likewise, must be innovative. We live in new and different lands with unfamiliar cultures. This means we must be observant and quick to pivot to new ideas and techniques that help us thrive. We don’t demand our national friends to adapt to us or our models of living. We make every effort to find innovative ways to connect with them on their turf.

Reason 3: You live holistically. 

Homeschooling families typically have deep faith convictions, especially those looking to integrate their Christian faith into their children’s education. Learning about compassion and generosity is as vital as geometry and Brit Lit. Parents know education is not only about hard skills (reading, writing, arithmetic) but also about applying those skills with strong morals and a healthy work ethic, which makes their children more well-rounded.

Missionary families also seek to live out their faith convictions. That is the whole reason we moved to what may be a faraway land. Christian missionaries often do life among people who don’t know who Jesus is. How we integrate our faith into everything we do acts as a testimony to the goodness of Jesus in our lives. Through that holistic living out of our faith, people from other cultures become curious about the peace, love and joy they see.

Reason 4: You embrace the weird.

As a homeschooling family, you may not think yourself weird, but plenty of outsiders don’t understand your strong convictions and commitment to educating your children. They just don’t get you, so they label you “weird.” You get to spend more time with your children, personalize their education to their skills and personality, and pass on your moral/religious values to the next generation. If that is weird, homeschool families can wear “weird” as a badge of honor.

Missions is weird, too. Moving to a foreign country, speaking a different language, teaching people about Jesus and asking people to support and pray for our success while living in a faraway land strikes people as weird. It is definitely uncommon. But Jesus commanded us in Matthew 28:18 to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Missionaries live their lives with a focus on the most fundamental part of the Christian message: telling others what Jesus did for us and how much He loves them. To others, that is weird, but to us, it is the everyday Christian life.  

Finally, and most important:

Reason 5: You have a passion for God.

As our culture gets further from the truth and as our institutions become obsessed with personal identity and the power of politics, homeschool families live for something more. It is not just a moral code or teaching Christian principles. Homeschooling gives families the chance to immerse themselves in the heart of God. You want something more than the empty arguments of a selfish culture. You want to tap into those eternal truths and an ancient path that has worked for God-loving people for thousands of years.

Well, my friend, if that is you, I also just described a missionary. Missionaries are people who believe that God loves the whole world so much that He sent Jesus to close the gap between them and Himself. That faith in the person and work of Jesus on the cross will set a person free from sin and death. We believe in a restored soul. Missionaries have simply accepted the invitation to offer that restoration to other people. People on the other side of the world who have never heard of this great gift provided for them that they can be free and experience restoration to God deep in their souls as well. If this is your passion, then you could be a great missionary.

A quick disclaimer…

Your family doesn’t need to be part of the homeschooling community for you to make great missionaries. In fact, you don’t even need to have a family; many serve single. Want to explore how God might use you and your unique background for His global purposes? We’d love to have a conversation with you about that. Contact us.