Part 2 Regional Issues and Insights - World Evangelical Alliance

mk education and care: lessons from asia 69
share the same need. If such a cluster or
critical mass does not exist, it is hard to
convince mission agencies to invest. Nevertheless,
we are encouraged to see that different
Asian countries are working at their
own speed, and more and more helpful
MK educational projects have been
launched in recent years.
National MK schools and hostels.
Some Asian countries, such as Korea, have
enough MKs to set up their own school.
The first Korean MK school, Hankuk Academy,
was established in Manila in 1994.
The school has recently set up boarding
facilities to cater to the needs of children
from families who live too far away to commute
to school. In 1998, the first Korean
MK hostel was set up near an IC school in
Chiang Mai, Thailand, to serve Korean
families in other parts of Thailand and
those who live across the borders. At
present, some Korean educators in Korea
are in the process of setting up a high
school with boarding facilities to serve
families who would like to send their children
back to Korea for education.
Proposed hostel projects. At present,
and with the view of supporting missionaries
with boys over age 11, mission and
church leaders in Singapore have proposed
setting up a hostel in Singapore to
enable parents to continue their service
on the field. In Hong Kong, some mission
leaders are thinking of a similar project in
order to encourage MKs to stay in Hong
Kong for their tertiary education.
Resources and advice for parents.
In some Asian countries, more and more
home-schooling materials, especially on
learning the mother tongue, have been
produced. Handbooks and books on MK
education have been published or are in
the process of being published by different
Asian countries, to guide parents regarding
children’s education, as well as
to provide information on educational
resources (see Appendix 2 at the end of
this article). At present, these handbooks
are available for Koreans, Filipinos, Hong
Kongese, and Malaysians. Also, several
Asian advisors on MK education and family
care are available to provide consultation
services within their mission agency
and for parents in other mission organizations
as well.
Today, more and more overseas Asian
schools set up by the government are
found on different mission fields, located
mainly in major cities. Some examples
include the Japanese School in Taipei, the
Taiwanese School in Bangkok, and the
Korean and Singaporean International
School in Hong Kong. Some of these
schools are well established and can be a
good resource for Asian missionary families.
For the mission community, most of
the educational projects, such as the Korean
MK school in Manila, the American/
Korean dual track model in Eastern Europe,
and the field and home hostel
projects are still at an experimental stage.
It will take some time to evaluate the effectiveness
of these models. Nonetheless,
it is very encouraging to see Asians initiating
various creative educational projects.
Case Study:
HKACM MK Care Group
Following is a description of the Hong
Kong Association of Christian Mission
(HKACM) MK Care Group. It illustrates the
kind of support that has been provided
for missionary families and how education
about MK care is taking place for mission
agencies and sending churches.
History and Composition
of the MK Care Group
Twenty years ago, some mission leaders
and missionary parents in Hong Kong
started voicing concern about MK education.
At that time, there were only a few
school-age MKs, and these families were
scattered in many different countries
around the world. Unfortunately, at that
time, very little was done for these children.
In 1995, in response to the increasing
number of Hong Kong MKs, an MK
Care Group was set up under HKACM, an
organization which provides inter-mission
support services in Hong Kong. Since