MY MISSIONARY CHILD
 
I helped her pack her bags to go,
My missionary child,
Her eager, trusting face aglow,
Passport and Visa filed.
 
"Are you sure," I asked with troubled voice,
"This is what you want to do?"
"Mom," she said, "I have no choice,
God has asked me to."
 
"Remember when I was six or seven,
And went to Sunday school?
I learned to love Lord Jesus then,
And I thought the Golden Rule was cool.
 
"Do you recall when I was small,
How I set my dollies down in rows,
And read Bible verses to them all,
And prayed for their little 'souls'?
 
"Daddy would smile and hug me,
As he teased me all the while,
Then would say how much he loved me,
That I was his missionary child.
 
"I think God earmarked me then,
I could hardly wait 'til I was grown,
So many little lambs to tend,
So many to lead home."
 
Well, I, too, hugged my daughter,
I knew she had been called,
To go across the water,
To serve the Greatest One of all.
 
So, my darling left the nest,
And started out to parts unknown,
Of course, I knew she had been blest,
But, oh, how I wanted her at home.
 
She wrote me nearly every day,
(I guess God saw to that,)
Gave me the numbers of those Saved,
And of those who strayed and then came back.
 
"Oh, my darling, when God sought you,
And called you, in His name,
Even though we first begot you,
So much greater was His claim."
 
God gives us babies when they're young,
And this fact of life we know,
The time, in deed, is sure to come,
That they are raised, and we let go.
 
"God wanted you, my sweetheart,
To be a member of His team,
He planned that one day we would part,
So you could fulfill that dream.
 
"What God and people now perceive,
Is a gentle woman with a smile,
But to me you shall forever be
My little missionary child.

by Virginia A. Ellis
copyright © 2000 
(used with permission)
This poem is very special to me.
It was a gift from the author to me. 
Thank you from "your missionary child".