I've always been fascinated with stories shared by missionaries. Often I am challenged in my own walk with Christ as I read the personal sacrifices missionaries make to serve God around the world. I've sometimes wondered how missionary kids (MKs), handle cultural changes, and how they grew in faith as a result. Mary Anne Phemister is a missionary kid. Her book, LESSONS FROM A BROKEN CHOPSTICK, surprised me. Reading her "memoir of a peculiar childhood" saddened me; at times it angered me. This book is a sobering revelation of how some missionary children can be the most sacrificed in a missionary's effort to reach a lost world.
Mary Anne chronicles snatches of her childhood memories that may break your heart. The book seems a therapeutic endeavor, a search to understand her past and how it connects her to her present. She survived a seemingly loveless relationship with a father, whose quest to share the gospel with an idolatrous world did not allow room to enjoy the blessings of God. She cradled isolation, abandonment, and insecurity, as companions throughout a childhood fraught with hardships. Shuffled from school to school, and left to the care of other missionaries and natives of China, she and her siblings adjusted to separation after separation from her mother and father, as her parents worked as missionaries in Asia. These were not occasional separations; they were years of separation.
How did she cope? The author shares several anecdotes that give insight into the diversions she had, and people from whom she gained strength, and comfort. It reminded me of the verse: "Though your father and mother forsake you, the Lord will lift me up." Psalm 27:10
The author touches upon her mother's skewed understanding of a wife's biblical role as a helpmate. She gives the reader glimpses into how her mother suffered spiritual and verbal abuse as a wife. Phemister shares how her father ignored his missionary board's urgings to leave China when communists were taking over their province; this resulted in his family being placed under house arrest for 16 months. Years later, he refused to follow the board's policy to leave Vietnam and was fired. He literally abandoned his wife and family to preach to the lost in an Asian world.
Chapter after chapter left me with questions. As I waited for the happily-ever-after ending, I found unanswered questions and Mary Anne's resolve, "Many things in life I cannot fix, nor should I even try." There is wisdom in that statement, and an unbreachable peace.
Today, Mary Anne Phemister is the wife of noted concert pianist, William Phemister. She is a nurse, author, mother and grandmother. In 150 plus pages, Phemister opens a place inside her heart, and reveals her struggle to understand memories lost, and memories never created. She exemplifies a lady who rose above hardship, and grew stronger in her Christian faith as a result.
