Part 2 Regional Issues and Insights - World Evangelical Alliance

mk education and care: lessons from asia 71
ship, talk, and pray with each other. A column
in the HKACM quarterly journal for
missionaries has been reserved for parents
to share their experiences on family issues.
Resource center. We have a resource
center on MK care and education which
is part of the HKACM library. Updated
changes in the local educational policies,
teaching resources, and MK books and
articles are available for parents.
MK Education
Home-school curriculum. A threeyear
curriculum is available with teaching
materials to help parents teach Chinese
to their Hong Kong pre-school MKs .
Dalat/Hong Kong project. In 1998,
HKACM started an educational project
with Dalat School, an MK school in Malaysia,
to help Hong Kong students in the
school maintain their mother tongue and
culture. In 1999, a Hong Kong teacher was
sent to help in the school.
Hong Kong MK hostel project. Encouraged
by the education project in
Malaysia, a local mission agency is considering
a pilot project to set up an MK hostel
in Hong Kong, to provide an option
for parents who wish to send their children
back to Hong Kong for education. It
is encouraging to see that more options
for educational support are being discussed
and made available to families.
Tertiary education. Several Hong
Kong MKs are studying in MK/IC schools
on the field. In the coming years, many
will likely further their education by attending
universities in North America.
Mission and church leaders have become
more and more concerned about financing
tertiary education for these children if
they go overseas. We have set up a study
group to explore the possibility of subsidizing
the education of these MKs.
MK Care
This is an area that we would like to
develop in the near future. Our MKs vary
from pre-school ages to high school and
college young adults. The need to care for
teenage and young adult MKs is especially
apparent. We need to help develop a support
system for these MKs, as well as help
to provide suitable career guidance for
them.
When the MK Care Group was first set
up in Hong Kong, most people were
frankly skeptical about the necessity of MK
care in mission. As the ministry develops,
more people are becoming convinced of
its importance and have shown more appreciation
of our work. Our two biggest
challenges since we started the MK Care
Group are the need to have a full-time person
coordinating the group and finding
viable ways to finance the ministry. Nevertheless,
we trust that the Lord will meet
our needs as we keep the vision and continue
to be faithful in the ministry.
Future Directions
Asian/Western Partnership
Asian/Western partnership in MK education
and care needs to be strengthened
continually. We are grateful that the partnership
is happening, and there is much
that Asians can learn from the rich experience
of our Western counterparts. On the
other hand, as we know, the cultures and
educational philosophies of East and West
are quite different. The dialogue between
MK personnel from these two parties
needs to continue, so that both groups
understand the best ways to educate and
care for MKs.
Asian/Asian Partnership
Another area of partnership is intermission
collaboration between different
Asian countries. In some Asian countries,
there is still a lot of room for the ministry
to be developed. In order to maximize
resources and reduce the duplication of
work, inter-mission partnership and partnership
with and among churches should
be encouraged, at least at the beginning
stage. As with international partnerships,
working together with mission agencies
and churches of different backgrounds can
be a big challenge. However, as we share
common goals in world evangelism and