Message Magazine Online - Vol. 55, No. 01, Spring 2007

Other Online Features

• Many Voices, One Lord
  Maureen Longnecker
• Four Dads and Four Daughters
  Cheryl Fawcett
• Ten Days of Casave
  Andrew Large, Nicaragua
• Something Unusual in France
  Frank and Marlea Pfeifer
• MKs Help in Outreach to Small Town Portugal
  Miriam Tyers, Portugal
• What is Language School Like?
  By a missionary in South Asia
• Dreaming Big: Church Ministries Institute Partners with Horizon International Schools
  John Taylor
• Nenagh-Gateway to Lough Derg
  Matt Tuttlebee, Baptist Missions Ireland
• Orthopedic Specialists Visit Togo
  Russ and Melody Ebersole
• History Week at the Greater Lisbon Christian Academy
  Mary Kay Smith
• Leader to Leader: Remembering Dr. Kempton
  William Amstutz
• Reaching Couples in Urban Spain
  Cindy Brown

An MK Receives High Honors

Angela Shuff, Message Editor

Missionary kids (MKs) have unique struggles growing up on the mission fields of the world; however, being an MK also brings great blessing and opportunity. Benjamin D. Schmidt is an example of a young man who made the most of the opportunities given him as a Canadian MK in the Middle East. God has enabled him to meet great challenges, and now he has achieved a great honor.

ABWE congratulates Benjamin, a newly commissioned infantry officer within the Canadian Armed Forces. He graduated with a B.A. in Military and Strategic Studies at the Convocation of the Royal Military College of Canada, held Wednesday, May 16, 2007. He then received Her Majesty’s Commission as Second Lieutenant at the RMC Commissioning Parade, held Thursday, May 17, 2007. At his commissioning service, Benjamin received the Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award and a Sword of Distinction for his exemplary demonstration of the college’s four pillars: academics, leadership, athletics, and bilingualism (English and French). During his senior year at the college, he was named the Cadet Wing Senior, the number one cadet in charge of 1,000 officer cadets. He gave thirty hours a week to leadership responsibilities on top of his school work, and even commanded his own graduation parade.

In 1989, when Benjamin was four years old, his parents went to the Middle East as missionaries. Benjamin went to public kindergarten with Muslims, Jews, and Christian Arabs, and all of his studies were in Hebrew, his first written language. By the time he was ten, he was fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Wanting to learn French, he went to a private French institution for high school.

Although Benjamin grew up in a turbulent part of the Middle East, he only thinks of his experience there in a positive light. During the Gulf War, he remembers wearing gas masks to bed at night. Surprisingly, Benjamin wasn’t crippled with fear, even when a suicide bomber mistakenly bombed his school building, and many students were injured. Like others who live in the Middle East, it was part of his culture to live in the midst of tension and violence. Benjamin says being an MK in that part of the world made him a stronger man in every capacity and gave him a unique perspective on the world. His parents and his love for the Lord steadied him, and he was keenly aware of the big picture which helped during times of uncertainty and fear.

“The growth you can get out of being an MK is great,” Benjamin says. “But the MK experience can go either way. So many thrive on it, yet so many others are crushed.” Benjamin sees his experience as a blessing, one that has given him many opportunities and prepared him for the road ahead. He feels humbled to have received such high honors from the Royal Military College of Canada, and he plans on working hard and continuing to be a leader wherever he is placed on duty.