Most of us love a clearly defined role in ministry, but mothers like Rachel Clarke face the challenge of dividing time between ‘formal’ and family ministry. She shares helpful insights for this juggling act.
When my 7-year-old was asked by his teacher what his mum did, he was stumped. ‘Nothing’ was the answer he eventually gave! To be fair to him, there have been times when I, too, have been unsure how to respond to this question. After all, what do I do? What is my main role here in Portugal? Should I be spending more time ‘working’ or more time nurturing my family? My husband’s role seems clearer – he’s an elder of a church plant and his days and evenings are mostly filled with church activities. But my role seems less clear.
It wasn’t always like this. Yes, before we left for Portugal, I was still a mum with small children, but I was also a primary school teacher a couple of days a week. Now the lines defining my role are blurred. I love being involved in the ‘formal’ ministry here, getting alongside female students and reading the Bible with them, getting stuck into children’s work at church, and helping teach the Bible to other women. But I also have the ‘informal’ ministry of raising four kids in a foreign land, far from our family and friends, and I long to do that well so that they might thrive as Third Culture Kids (TCKs).
Being on the mission field doesn’t only affect the parents. This hit us early on. So, because my ministry includes my family, much of my time is dedicated to serving them: filling in school forms, helping with homework, giving lifts to friends’ houses. Of course, lots of these are things you would’ve found me doing in the UK, but in another culture, everything is a little bit more complicated and unfamiliar. We also try to be intentional about doing ministry as a family. Our kids come to church with us, invite their friends to evangelistic events and together we’ve started a youth Bible study so that they and the other kids in church can learn more about Jesus. They pray with us for the work here in Portugal, they help ready the house when we have a tonne of people coming for dinner or to stay, they are simultaneously our harshest and most supportive audience, and they help us pronounce the most difficult phrases in Portuguese (which were so much easier for them to learn than for us!).
The propensity for parents, and perhaps especially mothers, to feel guilty about how they’re raising their children is huge. I often feel very aware that my children’s lives are so inextricably intertwined with our ministry, and therefore they will inevitably have different experiences compared to other children in the UK. It has been really good to remember that my most important desire for my children isn’t that they are always content, happy and have everything they want, but rather that they grow up knowing their Lord and Saviour who created them, and who loves them so much that he came to save them.
I therefore aim to carve out and protect these times that will help them grasp Jesus as their Lord and Saviour more and more as they grow up. I’m learning that Bible study prep can wait, and I can cherish being a mum in the moment. I’m learning not to moan about some of the ways the Portuguese church is different to the UK church. Instead, I want them to see the blessing of a cross-cultural church family when elderly ladies over here make them a skirt or ply them with biscuits at the end of the service or greet us so warmly when we return to Portugal after six weeks of home assignment.
I still haven’t worked out exactly what my role is and how much time to spend in ‘formal’ ministry or being a mum. But more importantly, God has been teaching me to enjoy the times I have with my kids here in Portugal whilst I can – being available when they get home from school, tidying the house together before we cook for 30 people or spending Sunday afternoon with church family. I’m thankful that whether clearly defined or not, I am blessed with the privileged ministry of loving my children and teaching them about the Lord.