[00:00:00] Rob Hoskins: there are moments and times where, as a holy community, we need to get our kids out of this,

and we need to put them in a safe place for a season. Yes, defensive against culture at times. Yes, relevant to culture at times. Yes, separation from culture at times. But always faithfully present in culture. And that’s the highest calling of a missionary family. I like to say we need to be fruitfully present in culture. we need to not only be faithful, but we need to be showing that the work of our hand and the missionary life of our family is actually bringing about transformation.

We as a family are salt and light in culture. and what we believe and what our values are and the way we live our lives and the way we engage with the culture around us is our missionary activity. we are light. We are salt. Because we are kingdom people.

Whether we’re living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, New York City, Beirut, Lebanon, Managua, Nicaragua, or anywhere else in the world. That’s what doesn’t change about us. And where we see things that we prophetically need to speak to in culture, we’re going to raise our voice and we’re going to speak in boldness.

Where we see things that are beautiful in culture, we’re going to lean in and try and learn from that culture. Where we see things at times We need to pull our kids out and say, Hey guys, let’s, pull back a little bit. Let’s spend time with Jesus. Let’s spend time with each other so that we can go back and re engage and be fruitful in our culture.

We wanna help you be the very best missionary so that you can give your very best to the people you’re serving.

What makes this podcast unique is it’s done by missionaries four mission.

How can we take timeless principles and apply them to our lives as missionaries? That’s really our heart behind this.

[00:01:53] Stephanie Gutierrez: Well, thanks everyone for joining us today. We have the great honor today of being joined by Dr. Rob Hoskins, the president of One Hope. I know many of you have heard of the Bible app for kids put out by YouVersion and that was really developed in partnership between One Hope and Life Church.

And beyond that, One Hope is a global ministry committed to engaging every child in the world with God’s word. And One Hope has already reached more than 1. 9 billion children. Yes, I said billion, not million, 1.9 billion children and youth around the world. So real numbers. And that just blows my mind.

Beyond that, Rob serves as a senior advisor to the World Evangelical Alliance and is on the strategic working group for the Lausanne Movement. And Rob and his wife, Kim are general appointed missionaries of the assemblies of God, and both grew up as MK’s, which we’re going to dig into a little bit today.

Rob also has a doctor of divinity and a doctor of ministry in world missions and cross cultural studies, and he’s currently teaching a doctoral program at Southeastern University. In addition, there’s more. He is the author of several books, of which I have all of them. They’re outstanding. We’ve got hope delivered!

We’ve got Reimagine Missions and Change Your World, which he wrote with John Maxwell. Make sure to pick up all of those. And there’s another one coming out soon here. Theology of the city that that’s on my list. I cannot wait. And Rob, I had the privilege of meeting you for the first time. I want to say it was about six years ago.

It was a small missions round table table led by you. Yes. At One Hope. And that was a day. I will never forget. And I don’t say this to be kind or to flatter. I say it very sincerely, but you are one of the most brilliant and passionate people in missions. I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I really genuinely mean that that is all true.

[00:03:46] Rob Hoskins: I’m sorry this is on video because you can see me blushing right now.

[00:03:51] Stephanie Gutierrez: I am thrilled beyond words that we have you with us today, speaking from your missionary heart to ours. And there’s about a thousand questions I’d love to ask you in directions we could go in, but I know when you and I were, were, um, discussing this beforehand, we decided to take it in the direction of family relationships and missions, because you are the son of missionaries, legendary missionaries at that.

You grew up as an MK. So did Kim. And you’re passionate about children. Cause that’s what One Hope is all about. Yeah. A lot of our missionaries are parents of kids and other ones are MK’s and it’s such a unique experience and it’s, it’s not easy. And I’d love to just begin by hearing a little bit about your MK experience.

What was that like for you?

[00:04:30] Rob Hoskins: Yeah, well, Stephanie, what a joy to be here with you. And, um, as, as I heard about, um, Who this podcast is for, uh, I, I really got excited. I mean, my tribe is missionaries and missionary kids, right? I mean, and so if there’s any value that I can provide for, for your audience, um, I, I really pray that I will today because, um, this is really the closest thing to God’s heart as His children, the closest thing to our heart as missionaries, as our kids.

And. You know, I heard my dad and mom say for years, like, you know, what will it prosper us if we gain the whole world where we’ve called us and we lose our own kids? And so, uh, this is, this is probably the most intimate thing we could talk about today on this, on this missionary podcast to this missionary family.

And so I really want to say thank you, Stephanie, for giving me the honor and the trust to be able to talk about this. most important and most valuable, um, commodity responsibility of stewardship we have as missionaries is our own children. So thank you for that. Yeah, I, I have, um, you know, they, they either say that missionary kids are going to change the world or, or blow it up.

You know, I mean, um, there, there’s actually studies done that people can download that, that shows sort of the overachieving, are the underachieving nature of missionary kids. It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a middle. Like, um, I think it’s because of the unique situation that we have by growing, growing up and, uh, bicultural situations and bilingual, um, having to shift being third culture, many of us, um, create some amazing opportunity and challenges all at the same time.

So the product of missionary kids is usually. People that are really super high achievers are people that have had horrible experiences that have really gone through a lot of trauma because of, uh, their upbringing and what they experienced and in a, in a negative or challenging way. And so that gulf is, is very wide.

So It makes us all the more cognizant, I think, of how we raise our kids. So I have to say, just as sort of a, I guess, a, um, just in full transparency, in my own family, we, we sort of experience both. Uh, obviously I’m in mission. My wife, Kim, is in mission. We’ve loved being missionary kids. But I have siblings who ran very hard away from the Lord and were prodigals for many, many years.

And now, thank God, their relationship with Jesus has been restored, but not without some pain in our own families. So, whoever you are today, like, even within a family, you have people that have responded super, super well. So there’s no sort of blueprint that says, this is the ideal way to raise a missionary kid.

Because I know in my family, I would say, I thought my parents raised me ideally. And I just had such an amazing, wonderful missionary kids experience. But if you talk to, um, my sibling, um, I, I think they would have a very different story to tell on this podcast today. So just, I wasn’t going to share this, but I think my dad would be fine with it.

Um, when, when my brother was really struggling with the Lord and very far away from Jesus, and he was living in Russia, he had this incredible gift in knack for language and business. And so, uh, but he was, he was really, uh, deeply in sin. Um, so my dad was actually talking to a family friend of ours who was a preeminent, uh, psychologist and really pouring his heart out to him about questioning, did we do something wrong as missionary parents?

Did I travel too much? Was I away from home too much? And it was really keeping a lot of sort of guilt on himself and, and, and my mom kind of wondering, did we make the right decisions? And, uh, the psychologist kind of paused and he says, I bet you’re really proud of Rob, aren’t you? And my dad sort of lit up and he said, Yeah, I am.

You know, and, uh, all that he’s achieved and accomplished. My dad founded the ministry that I lead now. So it’s just been amazing is him and mom passed the baton to Kim and I. And so they were talking about that. My dad’s, you know, it was just really talking about and then the psychologist said, so he must really, you know, take all the credit for, for, for Rob’s success in what he’s doing.

And my dad instantly said, well, no, of course not. And then he said, well, why do you take all the blame for your other son’s challenges? Um, you know, all of us, Stephanie, do the best we can. In the midst of the calling that we’re in, and obviously we need to really concentrate on being the best possible parents we can be.

But we shouldn’t question our call when some of our kids have challenges, and when their experiences perhaps don’t seem ideal. I just want to give that to some parents today that might really be struggling with maybe some of their kids who are having a hard time. Um, we can’t take all the credit for, uh, our good kids.

We can’t take all the blame for our kids that are struggling.

[00:09:31] Stephanie Gutierrez: And I appreciate that you really said that. Cause I think that’s very, it’s a very life giving thing. That’s probably very freeing for people who are listening. That that’s such an important distinction between not taking all the blame nor taking all the credit, neither one belongs to us.

So within that, you’re asking yourself, what is my responsibility? I’m not taking all the blame. I’m not taking all the credit, but what is my role and my responsibility within that?

[00:09:54] Rob Hoskins: Yeah, and Kim and I really, um, we thought a lot about that even when we were dating, um, knowing, having both.

So, I, I grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. Um, my parents were, um, missionaries, mainly working among Muslims, um, in the Middle East, and kind of helped pioneer a lot of the Pentecostal work, in fact, in, in the Middle East. Um, and we were there until the war, and then we were evacuated three times, so it wasn’t like we had a completely stable environment.

We, in the last time we were evacuated, our home blew up and we had lost everything. Um, my, my family didn’t, like, really itinerate very much, so I hadn’t had much experience in the U. S. at all, having, uh, grown up in, in, in Beirut. So then we, then we went to Europe, and we were in Europe four years, where, uh, during those early high, junior high, late junior high, high school years, I was in Europe where, which was, had its own challenges, um, obviously growing up in a very secular environment, very different than growing up in the Middle East. My wife Kim grew up in Central and South America. Her parents were crusade evangelists, missionaries, so they moved around a lot. She lived in eight different countries growing up, um, so constantly moving, so the challenges that exist there.

So between the two of us, between war, she was in the war in El Salvador, I was in the wars in Beirut, so we both experienced some pretty, um, horrific and, and, and huge challenges, but, uh, bottom line. We, we will, we wouldn’t have trade, we wouldn’t trade our missionary kids experience for anything in the world.

We consider that sort of our our greatest badge of honor. You know, uh, you were going through all the things and the degrees and the ministry that, that, that I run. And I would say that my number one sort of highest, what I’m, what I’m proud of is being a missionary kid and, and also raising missionary, uh, daughters who, um, and that’s been a very different experience just to give context here.

So both Kim and I, we were like, We’re going to go to the mission field. We’re actually headed to Ivory Coast, Cote d’Ivoire, where we were going to work among Muslim students at the university there, and I had a series of physical challenges. I actually was blind for eight months. Uh, halted our, our missionary, uh, in, uh, we were ready to go to the field and that, that stopped.

But at the same time, my dad had this vision for what became One Hope. And, um, I had moved back in with my in laws because of my, uh, physical challenges. Went through five eye surgeries that year. And, uh, so, we just started having to work stateside. And started working with my, my dad and mom on this new vision they had for God’s Word Every Child.

And six months became a year, became two years, became three years, uh, now became 33 years where we’ve been and, and eventually mom and dad handing the baton to Kim and I to lead One Hope about 20 years ago. So, um, we never dreamed that we would raise our, our, our children in the United States. Um, we thought, Of course, we’re gonna, you know, raise them somewhere in the world, and they’re gonna be like us, and they’re gonna grow up speaking several languages, and loving culture, and, uh, they weren’t.

They were stateside based missionaries, uh, kids. So we had to be super intentional about, uh, having them being raised in the U. S., but us having a deep desire for them to have a missionary kid experience. So we had to be very intentional about that. But I think that same intentionality would have come whether we were on the field or whether we were Bay State side.

And if, if you don’t think about the outcome you want to have for the lives of your kids. and really place it as one of the highest priorities. Sort of the raising of healthy missionary kids will fall by the wayside as you get involved in the work of ministry. And you’re, you’re sort of hoping that they’ll, they’ll catch it, that of course they’ll see what, you know, mom and dad are called to and they’re participating in it because they’re around it.

But it’s not enough. I think you really have to begin to think at the earliest of ages. What experience is my child having? And is it a positive experience? And am I mindful? Um, continuously, uh, the uniqueness of raising a child, um, as a, as a missionary, and there are very unique challenges. Uh, besides the cultural challenges that exist, there’s the pressures that exist.

Um, they’re not just missionary kids, there’s pre, they’re preacher kids. And there’s all kinds of pressures that come with being a PK, um, and, and then of course we see this moving from one culture to another and a re entry culture shock which I experienced when we moved from France to the United States when I was 16.

I’d only lived in the United States for one year, uh, when we were itinerating one year, so. I was really a fish out of water coming back in as a 16 year old and doing one year of high school before I went into college and university, which wasn’t a lot of time to re assimilate. Um, so we have unique challenges and we have to be unique parents.

Um, we, we can’t just say, we’re just going to raise our kids like everybody else because the context is, is different than everybody else. So, uh, we’ve got some bells chiming here. I hope that’s okay. We’re all good. Rob, you took a really interesting…Maybe it’s a dramatic pause because it gives, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a wake up bell, right?

[00:15:13] Stephanie Gutierrez: It is!

[00:15:13] Rob Hoskins: We really need to wake up as parents and say, Let’s really plan and let’s follow that plan. Um, and, and Kim and I did that with our girls and, uh, I’m so grateful and thankful that we did.

[00:15:27] Stephanie Gutierrez: And I love what you said there. You mentioned two things. You mentioned setting outcome. So deciding what is it that we want our kids to experience?

And then you mentioned evaluation, pausing and saying, Hey, is this working? How are my kids doing? So with you and Kim, what were some of the outcomes that you wanted your kids to have as MK’s?

[00:15:44] Rob Hoskins: Well, I think one thing that both Kim and I loved about our missionary kids experience was the proximity we had to our parents and our family and being integrated and involved so that it wasn’t our parents are missionaries and we have to go with them, but it was, we’re a missionary family.

Um, and us feeling both Kim and I, like being a part of it from the very beginning and, uh, them sharing with us, uh, things that perhaps, uh, maybe some parents in other professions. wouldn’t have shared with their, their, their children because it wasn’t essential or necessary, but our parents sort of felt like we dragged our kids into living in a war zone in Beirut, are moving homes eight times, eight countries, eight different countries before you’re 12 years old.

Like, so they sort of sense this responsibility of saying, um, that we need them to come on this journey with us. And, and that means including them. And sort of a level of transparency, uh, with your children that might really not have happened in a quote, normal profession. Um, and I think that was, that was really, really important.

Uh, and as Kim and I analyzed, what did we love about our missionaries kids experience is that integration. of saying we are a missionary family and that we’re in this together. And that means knowing when to draw the line. Um, I remember our missionary board, um, when we were going to go to Ivory Coast in Africa and we were being interviewed by our denomination, they actually said, well, for, for that part of, uh, West Africa, we want your kids to go to boarding school. We have a great boarding school at West Africa. Kim and I just drew the line in the sand and said, proximity and our kids involvement in our ministry missionary life is, is primary to us. And, um, that was a line in the sand and, and for a few weeks of interview process. they had said, Well, then you probably can’t be sent out with us.

And that was just tragic because Kim and I had both grown up within our denominational structure and felt like it was our home. It was our ecclesiastical home, and it was our missional home. But that was something we weren’t willing to give up on. And finally, they were they relented and, as I said earlier, because of my physical challenges we never actually went to West Africa.

But I’m glad that we sort of have faced that challenge early on, even before this, before we had kids, we hadn’t even had a child yet. we were just about to have our first baby, but we had said, no, for us, I’m not saying boarding school is wrong. I’m just saying as parents and as a family, you’ve got to figure out what’s right for us and, and have those convictions and those values.

I think we, we all know, you know, we’ve heard the Druckerism, um, culturally strategy for breakfast. I think those sometimes with missionaries, um, strategy needs, and we, we, we start really seeing that as we get into the heat of the battle of missionary work. And we’re doing important work, right? We’re there saving people.

We’re, we’re there, uh, proclaiming Jesus to people who’ve never heard it before. We’re establishing churches in places where they’ve never been established. We’re building educational institutions where there’s never been any theological education before. I mean, these are massive kingdom strategies, and we have that responsibility to say, I have a stewardship over these huge kingdom strategies.

And if we’re not careful, those strategies become a higher priority than our children. Jesus never intended We don’t serve a schizophrenic God who tells us, Bring up spiritually healthy kids, um, and sacrifice them at the altar of kingdom strategy. That is not Jesus plan for any of our lives. so we’re not intentional, and we don’t have those values firmly established within our home, within our family.

And the decisions we’re making as parents, kids are usually the ones that are going to suffer the consequences of that, the most.

[00:19:41] Stephanie Gutierrez: That’s such a great point. And I love that you’re bringing up that tension between taking care of your kids and then also strategy. So culture and strategy, your family side, and then what also God has called you to do.

And sometimes as with many things in life, you’ll see people pendulum swing. And they’ll, as Andy Stanley talks about, they’ll try to solve a tension rather than manage it by either going, you know what, I’m not going to take my kids to church. I’m just going to be with them and I’m only going to be with them and I’m going to huddle down in this kind of isolated bubble or they’ll kind of ditch their kids and go off and do ministry.

And so it’s balancing that tension between the two and that takes constant evaluation, as you pointed out, clear outcomes and constant evaluation. One of the things I really love that you’re bringing up right now is the difference between a missionary family. And missionaries with kids. I think that might be a really interesting and different way of looking at it for a lot of families.

And you mentioned a couple of the things for you, for you and Kim were proximity was one of the ones that you really wanted transparency, letting them see a little bit of what was going on and then inclusion, them being a part of it. Can you speak more into what that looks like that inclusion or that sense of ownership that missionary kids. Well, as you say, should, should have, or you wanted your kids to have.

[00:20:54] Rob Hoskins: Yeah. And I think, you know, look, when we say we’re missionary parents, we, we can’t pretend that we have a homogenous context, the context, and that all of us are doing ministry in the same way. I mean, some of us are church planners. Some of us are educators.

Um, some like me now are kind of missions executives and there’s. sort of, uh, so, so there’s no blueprint that sort of says, this is how you involve your kids in the work of missionary life. I think all of us have to figure that out on our own. But, um, I’m a big fan of, um, Dr. Robert Coles, who’s a child psychiatrist from Harvard.

And he’s written some amazing books, The Spiritual Life of Children, The Moral Life of Children. It’s actually an Episcopalian, lay minister with the Episcopalian church. So, men of faith, um, and Coles just really, uh, analyzed, and this isn’t just for missionary because this is just parenting in general, but he said, you know, when we were in agrarian society, it was very easy for, children to be involved in the, in the, in the family profession.

We are farmers, right? I mean, um, and then we moved into a, to a manufacturing, uh, uh, culture and the industrial age. And he said, even there, it wasn’t so much we are farmers, but it was very much, this is what dad makes. It was, it was, there was a tangible product that was created. And he prophesied and then continued to lead during a time where he says, but we’re coming up against the knowledge economy, where, it’s not who we are in the agrarian society, or it’s not even something you can point to, to say, this is what we make.

But in the knowledge economy, there’s sort of this separation that begins to take place. And as, as mainly probably Western missionaries that are listening to us today our role as, as, as missionaries in a globalized world in a context is we’re very much increasingly specialists in what we do in a, in a knowledge environment.

We’re providing a certain value to the indigenous churches of the world. fewer and fewer of us are generalists. so, so we’re bringing a certain knowledge, comes with a lot of professionalism, rightfully so, being sent out as Western missionaries to help serve the global church. So, I think Kohl’s really pinpointed something here, with a knowledge economy, and he said there’s a danger that I have identity that will come in rearing your children if they don’t understand your purpose in life. when you’re a farmer, they know the purpose is to create food to feed the world. If you’re creating a product, you can point to it and say, dad builds cars, and that helps people in transportation.

There’s a sense of identity that comes around that, you know, he’s a fireman, he puts out fires, he brings, he’s a teacher, he’s educating children, yes, but sometimes, so I was, I was really dealing with this as we were raising our kids in South Florida. And I’m dealing with missions every day and I’m going on a lot of trips.

We’re trying to take them as much as we can, but in many ways they’re living a quote normal life. They’re going to school. they’re coming home for dinner. And so how do you give them that sense of purpose and identity as a missionary family in those kinds of contexts and a knowledge economy? And I was, I was, I was driving my, girls one day and their kids were in the car and I just said, I said, Hey, what do your parents do?

You know, and, there were three other kids in the car, and they all said, they go to the office. And I said, Oh, okay, well, they go to the office, but like, what is their profession? They go, they go to the office, you know, and these three, three American kids had no clue, like, what their parents did, like, you know, I couldn’t even get out.

Are they, you know, are they in insurance? Are they in, you know, business or corporate or, law, or these kids didn’t even know. And I think in a knowledge economy, there’s a real danger. Now that’s kind of an extreme example. I think most missionary kids, let’s say my parents are missionaries. But I think it has to be more than that.

I think it really has to be, what your family is called to and then having a deep understanding of the work that you’re doing. So Kim and I really embedded that in the lives of our children at the youngest possible of ages. Like our family is God’s word, every child, like that’s the mission we’re called to.

So we’re trying to teach our kids at the youngest possible age, the value of scripture engagement, in their life. In the life of our family, but also as our calling, for us at the youngest possible of ages to say, that what we’re doing is we’re translating, distributing, and engaging. the next generation with the word of God.

And it’s the most value for us as our family, it’s the most valuable thing we could do with our lives. So, so if you can instill that in your children, the actual missionality of your family and, and what is the outcome? Why are we working harder than most families work? Why are we sacrificing in ways that their classmates families aren’t having to sacrifice in?

Because there’s tremendous sacrifice as a kid. I mean, particularly because I was stateside. I remember, in 1991, I met with the Ministry of Education of the former Soviet Union, and overnight we were given permission to distribute God’s Word to every school in the former Soviet Union, given a letter of permission to give God’s Word to 62 million kids.

And I knew that day, as I was there in the Ministry of Education, that my life was had just changed dramatically. And I, and, and Kim knew why I was there, knew I was meeting with the Minister of Education. My kids knew that. They were very young at the time. In fact, my youngest daughter wasn’t born yet. The other one was just a few years old.

But, I knew that this, and it did change. I mean, in, in the nineties, I made, uh, 52 trips to the former Soviet Union. there would be times where I would preach on a Sunday, fly to the, fly somewhere in Russia. Do a distribution to the entire city, plant a church, and fly back by the next Sunday, because we were having to raise money, so those Sunday services in America were so critical, and then come home exhausted, you know, to a, to a, to a young mother, and this was happening when our kids were at the youngest possible ages, Kim and I really had to balance out, you know, um, can we do this?

Can we accomplish this mission of reaching every child in the former Soviet Union, planning churches, taking advantage of this opportunity and, and still raise healthy children? And I’ll tell you, if, if, if my wife hadn’t been the superstar that she was, I would have had to say no to this great mission and strategy and opportunity that was there because we had made a covenant that our kids were our highest priority and they weren’t going to suffer.

I can tell you my, my daughters, they can tell you. never heard a negative word out of my wife’s mouth about daddy being gone. It was always, it was always about, Hey guys, we got to pray. Daddy’s going to the city of Camarillo. He’s going to the city of Khrustalnyi. There’s 700, 000 people there. They’ve never had access to the word of God you know. And then every summer, and, and, and my board approved this. And I, I probably, wouldn’t have stayed with One Hope if they hadn’t approved it, that they would pay for my daughters to go with me and Kim to go with me, and so that they could experience what was happening the other nine months out of the year while they were in school back in Florida.

So that they could feel like they had participated in, and now even as adults, they can look back and say, we helped provide God’s word for every child in the former Soviet Union. So, we have to get very tangible about these things. And, and we have to make sure that, the family is on mission. and the sacrifices we make, our decisions we’re making as a family.

And I think if Kim hadn’t done such a masterful job of that and was committed to that, and she was a missionary kid, so she knew what she was getting into. In fact, while we were dating, she broke up with me. and she says, not because I didn’t love you, but because she said, I knew what I was getting into. And she said, you were a missionary evangelist, like my dad was, which means it wasn’t going to be, we’re going to one country, we’re going to stay there. and she said, you know, frankly, she hated the fact that she never went to a school. that she was moving every year was a tremendous sacrifice for her.

And she said, uh, Rob, I know what God’s calling you to. I know what it means. You’re, you’re, you’re a missionary evangelist. You’re going to be traveling, even if we’re based in Africa or somewhere else. You’ve got an apostolic call on your life, church planting call on your life. That means travel. She said, I’m going to tell you, I’m not going to travel with you as much as you want me to.

And, and she actually, that’s why she broke up with me. And, and after a long time of prayer, God spoke to her and said, you know what, um, you don’t have to travel. you can stay home and raise your children and it’ll be a special calling for you to release Rob into that type of ministry. And there will be a season where you raise your kids.

So we had those conversations early on, and I’m so glad we did Stephanie or else we probably wouldn’t have made it through the hard years of those early. childhood years of, of raising our girls. And, you know, I still have regrets. I mean, I can still look back on those, on the, on the nineties and the amount of time I was gone, and my girls were very young.

And I, it would be very easy for me to beat myself up and say, you know, I wish I had spent more time with them, and frankly, just a few years ago, Kim and I went through some counseling as we went through empty nesting, and we’re talking about this new season of life we were entering, and a lot of that came out. It was pretty painful for me to acknowledge, maybe some of the loss, as a father, and, and not being there, and the counselor just said, you know, Rob, I hear you. And, uh, but she said, you know, all you’re saying is what got you here isn’t going to get you to where you want to go. And you can, really now for the next 10, 20 years of this next season of life.

In your words, uh, be a better husband to Kim than you were, because I was young, I was driven, I was on fire. I mean, we come from missionary families who are like, we’re going to change the world, we’re going to reach everybody on the planet. I mean, we have that, we’re evangelists, you know, and, and, and so we were, we were aggressive.

And, you know, all it’s done, Stephanie, has made me realize, wow, I’m just so grateful for it. a wife who was able to hold it all together for us. But she was also super intentional about, you know, Hey Rob, you know, Natasha needs you right now and, uh, why don’t you take her on this next trip with you? And, uh, I’ll stay home with Deondra.

And then we made it fun. I mean, you gotta make it fun. I mean, my, my mom and dad, made missionary life fun, and so did Kim’s parents. It’s really weird, by the way. My, my dad and Kim’s dad were best friends. They met when my dad was 17 and he was 21. They were in each other’s wedding.

So long before Kim and I were married, our, and so when we would take breaks, we would normally meet up somewhere in the world, and, and go on vacations together as families. and, and they were, you know, uh, my in laws before they were my in laws to me were the coolest. people on earth. And Kim said, you know, she felt that my parents were the coolest parents on earth.

And we just had a blast as missionary families together. And, you know, there’s a uniqueness about the weirdness of who we are as missionaries that other people just can’t understand. And it’s why you have such deep, intrinsic relationships, with other missionary families and missionary kids. you know, instantly with another MK, you don’t have to talk about what it’s like being a third culture kid.

You just are, right? So you just have this instant sort of bond. And so, but man, we had a blast. We just had so much fun. And I, and I always remembered my dad took advantage of that. Like when we were evacuated from Lebanon, I remember initially we were, uh, we didn’t know how long we were going to be evacuated, so we got sent to Cyprus.

And my dad just said, man, Cyprus is kind of boring. Let’s go over to Greece. And we spent that summer in Greece. And man, I look back and I go, man, that was one of the funnest summers of my life. Like, although we had been evacuated from Lebanon, and I wasn’t with any of my friends, and, I just still remember Port au Prince, Greece and, hanging out and just having a blast.

And, you know, to this day, I love Greek food. because of that summer we spent in Greece and my parents just always made it fun. And I see some missionary parents and I feel sorry for their kids because it’s, no, I really do. It’s just all about ministry and they’re never take advantage of the dynamic cultures they’re living in, the amazing food.

I mean, my mom and dad were huge foodies. I’m a foodie to this day the, the first. Not the first thing. I mean, probably the second or third thing I do when I know I’m I’ve been booked to speak somewhere in the world. I just got back from South Korea this week where I was there for the Pentecostal World Fellowship.

And, um, you know, I spent a good two hours researching where I was going to eat those six, seven days. and, you know, sending texts to friends and say, Hey, I’m going to be in Seoul. What’s your favorite sushi restaurant in Seoul? And, you know, if you don’t, if you don’t love this world that God created, I don’t really think you’re a missionary, a true missionary.

And, and, and that needs to be contagious with your kids. I love that you said that to you.

[00:33:51] Stephanie Gutierrez: So you’re reminding me of something a mutual friend of ours, Pastor Carolyn Haas, said to me when we were talking about kids one day. She goes, you know, being a PK, or we could say being an MK is really hard. Like, let’s be real.

There is unique challenges and it is difficult and they sacrifice alongside with us. She goes, but I’m always quick to point out to my kids that they get to do really special things that other kids don’t get to do. And, and for us who have MK’s or who have been MK’s, it’s true. We’ve got maybe other languages that we can speak.

We have stories to tell that can beat all our friends. I mean, we’ve gotten, we’ve gotten to meet really unique people, experience unique things. And sometimes though, as parents, you have to remind your kids of that because they can just be like, everyone’s looking at me. I live in a box and it’s not fun. But did your friend get to do this?

[00:34:39] Rob Hoskins: And we have the weirdest sense of humor in the world too. Oh, totally. So we have this weird, sometimes a little bit caustic cynical humor because I think because of the classic culture that happens. And, and just being able to see culture sometimes more acutely than people that come from, you know, they say, um, in philosophy, like, if you want to know what water is, don’t ask a fish.

I mean, cause a fish doesn’t know, cause they just, and so even like, you know, if you want to know about American culture, don’t ask an American, ask an MK. I mean, ask somebody that comes from another culture and comes into it. So, I mean, just as an example, I was with another MK and, um, and we were in Russia and we, we had gobs of short term teams coming over, right?

And I mean, short term teams can be incredibly beneficial, incredibly frustrating, and almost amazingly, humorous, based on some of the things they do. And so as missionary kids, we just, we sort of love pulling their legs, so I remember we were in Moscow, and we were going to take an all night train to Minsk. And, uh, you know, it’s an all night train. And so my missionary kid buddy, uh, is, is doing an orientation for this new short term team that they’ve asked him. And so, uh, you know, while he’s giving the orientation, I said, yeah, and don’t forget, you know, that in the middle of the night, if, if, if they wake up in the middle of the night, you know, like two or three in the morning, they can look out the window. They can see the Great Wall of China. And my, you know, my friend instantly knew I was going to school. So yeah, he can’t believe it. And so you don’t want to miss that.

And then, you know, he said, our Russian director says, you guys are horrible. But sure enough, I mean, so much of the team got up in the middle of the night at two in the morning. They’re looking out the window and they’re like, I think that’s the Great Wall. So, I mean, sorry for that. You’re listening right now. But it’s just, you know, we have sort of this twisted view of the world, and I just saw how my parents, and even with my own kids, I can just see how you’ve got to be able to make light, um, of the amazing sort of situation you’re growing up in, and the uniqueness of your life, and, and just leaning into it, and enjoying it, making fun of it, but also deeply loving, culture and, and loving the people of the culture.

Um, I think some of my, my greatest friends in the world today still come out of the first 12 years of my life in Beirut, Lebanon. and that sense of community that we had, my parents were super intentional about the missional community we had, not just with fellow missionaries, but with the national church.

So, I was a baby when I was there and, I had a 14 year old babysitter, a young man who was in my parents, who had come to my parents new church, and he was in the youth group, 14 years old, and he was my babysitter growing up. His name was Marwan Rifka, and he eventually became the president of EDS, Ross Perot’s old company, you know, he’s a Fortune 10 CEO. And then as One Hope began to grow and they handed the presidency over to me to be the leader, I just knew that I wanted Marwan on my team. And so he became the executive vice president of One Hope and he still is today. And I like to say he’s still my babysitter, you know, because he just, from the time he was 14 until the time I was 12 and he was in his 20s, was a mentor in my life and one of the dearest friends I had.

And now I have a Lebanese executive vice president, all these years later. who, uh, is one of my closest, dearest friends and mentors in the world. So, falling in love with the culture, but even more, following in love with the people that God has called you to reach. I just see so many missionary families that make the mistake of sort of isolating themselves and, and not fully immersing themselves in the cultures that they’re a part of.

I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know who to root for during the World Cup. I mean, it’s a toss up between the U. S. and, and, and France, and, you know, God help me if both of them go to the finals of the World Cup, because I’m just going to be schizophrenic. I’m going to be, yeah, France, yeah, U.S.A. So, so, I think that’s, I think we’ve, we’ve got to do that, and we should want to do that, right?

That’s why we’re in missions, is because of the people that God loves. And, you know, I would always, and even now, I think as I’m older and more mature, if I ever hear a missionary or One Hope staffer, ever say anything critical about another culture. I just, I just asked them, why are you here?

Like, what, why are you being so caustic or cynical about the national church? Or, sure, there’s challenges that we have, and we need to be transparent with our kids about the challenges we face, and, you know, there’s no church in the world that’s perfect. and we’re always going to be able to say, wow, I wish that this would change about the church in Africa or Asia or the United States or anywhere else.

If we’re not careful, there can be so much negativity about the people we’re ministering to or the people we’re ministering with that it can really sour our kids to the, to the, to the love. that for the reason of our calling, which was that God called us to a people and, and he loves those people so deeply and dearly that we have been sent out to minister to and with those people and they should become our family.

And I find that people have the missionaries that have a healthy view of the cultures of the world and the churches that we’ve been called to serve. if they fall in love with them. I think for the most part, those kids are going to have a healthy outlook.

[00:39:59] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes, that is so good. And I know as we’re starting to draw things to a close, there is one more question that I really want to ask you just based on some of the information that you guys have gathered through the global youth culture survey that you did. MK’s today versus MK’s previously, what do you think are some of the unique challenges that MK’s today are facing that are maybe different from when you were growing up?

[00:40:49] Rob Hoskins: Oh, wow. Yeah.

[00:40:56] Stephanie Gutierrez: Sorry, I dropped kind of a large question for a last question, but I’ve seen the survey that you guys put together and it’s remarkable. And we’ll put links to that in the show notes.

[00:41:03] Rob Hoskins: It’s absolutely true. I mean, um, in the age of digital, in the age of connectivity, in the age of the internet and social media, it’s a different world than I grew up in. So when I was growing up in Lebanon, we only had two hours of English television a week, and we, we really did live in sort of a cocoon, right? And our family was the home church. and, and it was, it was, In some ways easier. I, I thank the Lord. I mean, and you would think, you know, with what not just missionary kids are facing, any kid, any parent right now, and what we’re facing in culture, is so scary to me.

I mean, it, it makes me want to, you know, run to the hills with my grandbabies that are being raised right now. they, they were living in New York City, my, my two grandbabies, and now we have a third one, they just moved to Nashville, and it was almost like, I was like, oh, thank you, Jesus, they moved out of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is kind of the epicenter of wokeness, and, you know, and, just, I mean, we, we walked around the street in Williamsburg with our grandkids, and, like, you just see gender confusion all around you, and you, and language, and the smell of marijuana in the air, and, And it’s like, wow.

When they moved to Nashville, I was like, Oh, good. It’s like, I want to take them and say, Hey, how about going up into the hills of Tennessee? You know, I mean, let’s, let’s get our grandbabies in the safest possible place they can be, you know, says an MK. I love that. Exactly. Right. I mean, because when they’re your own precious kids, you want to guard them and shield them from the world.

And the Holy Spirit has just continued to remind me, like, you know, it’s really interesting when, I was, I was in the car again with my daughter and her friends. She was in junior high, she was in eighth grade. And here we are living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, very affluent community, there. And, uh, and we had an MK scholarship so they, they were going to this really prestigious Presbyterian school.

and we’re driving back from the mall. And these are, these are junior hires, and my daughter’s in the front with me and their, and her friends are in the back. and her friends start talking about what they’ve been shopping for and they were talking about g string underwear, you know, and the sexy underwear that they just bought.

And I’m looking over and my daughter’s face is just bright red and she’s just like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe my friends are talking about that. And so, you know, they, we, we dropped the other kids off and it was just my daughter and I in the car. We’re driving back to the house and I said, let me ask you a question. Are you embarrassed that they were saying those things in front of me? Are you, were you just embarrassed of the topic? And I said, I think, I think the question is, it was because I was in the car. And I said, let me ask you, do you feel like that’s appropriate? Like, if I wasn’t there, do you think that at this age, like, that’s really what’s important in life and something you need to be thinking about?

And it really opened a conversation. Long story short, Kim and I made the decision to pull our daughter out of junior high, and that I was going to homeschool her for a year and she was going to travel with me, her entire eighth grade year. And she was super popular in school. And she, hated that decision.

I mean, and the first place I took her was to a friend in, in, uh, in Benin. And she went and lived in the bush for three months with his family in the bush, sort of just a culture shocker. And for her to say, look, where we’re living in the United States is not the real world. It’s a very cosmetic, superficial world.

And you didn’t have the experience that your mom and I had growing up in another culture. And we don’t want you to lose, that experience that allowed us to say. We are part of a kingdom culture. We are not part primarily of an American culture or a Lebanese culture or a Nicaraguan culture. We are kingdom people and we have kingdom values and kingdom principles.

This is who we are and one of the best ways to do that. And I remember someone criticizing my wife and said, I can’t believe that you would drop your daughter off in the bush of Africa as a 12 year old. And And my wife said, I can’t believe you drop your daughter off in the malls of America by herself, like, um, because I think that’s a far deeper threat.

And so, you know, wow, Stephanie, you know, my theology says, about engagement with culture. We can read Niebuhr, Christ to Culture, Christ above Culture, Christ beside Culture. Or James Davidson Hunter, who, and I really liked his construct. He said, you know, when we think about, uh, kingdom and culture, We, we, we can’t be just defensive against culture.

We can’t just be relevant to culture, right? I’ve seen MK’s that have become so relevant to culture. I saw some of my missionary kid friends in Western Europe. who became so involved in Western European culture, they became so secular humanistic that they lost their faith. So, we can’t be separation from culture.

You know, we can’t be so pietistic that we’re like, I’m going to take my kids to the hills of Tennessee. and what Davidson Hunter says is, we have to actually be faithful in culture. Like, we have to understand that we’re in the world, but we’re not of the world. And so, there’s an element that are correct about all three of those positions.

There are times where we need to be defensive against culture. Where we as a family need to say, you know, what’s wrong here? there’s no perfect culture in the world. There are things that are beautiful and lovely about every culture that we want to elevate within the lives of our kids. there are certain things that we need to be relevant to in that culture to say, Wow, look at how the Arabs love family, how they, they, they, they, they, they so appreciate extended family, right?

I mean, those are things that are beautiful that need to be elevated. There are certain things that we need to be defensive against, no matter what culture you’re in. and, and there are certain times and there’s appropriateness to say we need to be separated from culture. Like, there are moments and times where, as a holy community, we need to get our kids out of this, and we need to, we need to be, um, put them in a safe place for a season, and so, yes, defensive against culture at times, yes, relevant to culture at times, yes, separation from culture at times, but always faithfully present in culture.

And, and that’s the highest calling of a missionary family is to be able to say, and, and I like to go one step further than, than Hunter does. I like to say we need to be fruitfully present in culture. we need to not only be faithful, but we need to be showing that the work of our hand and the missionary life of, of our family is actually bringing about transformation.

We as a family are salt and light in culture. We as a family are light in the hill in culture. And, and what we believe and what our values are and the way we live our lives and the way we engage with the culture around us is our missionary activity. We, we are light. We are salt, because we are kingdom people.

Whether we’re living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, New York City, Beirut, Lebanon, Managua, Nicaragua, or anywhere else in the world, that’s what doesn’t change about us. And where we see things that we prophetically need to speak to in culture, we’re going to raise our voice and we’re going to speak in boldness.

Where we see things that are beautiful in culture, we’re going to lean in and try and learn from that culture. Where we see things at times We need to pull our kids out and say, Hey guys, let’s, let’s, let’s pull back a little bit. Let’s spend time with Jesus. Let’s spend time with each other so that we can go back and re engage and be fruitful in our culture.

So, that’s not just for missionary parents. I think that’s a problem in the church today. we see that right now. We see such a polarized, toxic, global youth culture. And you asked about our study. What we’re finding is that kids everywhere, you can’t run and hide anymore, no matter where you are. you can’t say, I had a, I had some African pastors when we were doing qualitative research said, You know, this gender dysphoria, this sense of sexual identity, that’s not an African problem, that’s an American problem.

Well, sorry, we did the research, and your kids in Africa are struggling with sexual identity as much as kids are in the West right now. We have a global youth culture that is emerging everywhere. You know, Elon Musk is in the midst of launching 32,000 satellites that will completely cover the face of the earth.

And we’ll have high speed internet in every single part of the world, including the bush of Africa, or the mountains of Mongolia. So, you can’t run and hide anymore, friends, even if you’re a missionary family. And whether you’re bringing them up in the U. S. and you’re a missionary executive who’s based here in the States, or whether you’re in the bush of Africa and your kids are away to boarding school, they’re going to have access.

And parents have to be more engaged in the life of their child and making sure that they are the priority. And that the word they’re not just providing the word of God for the people they’re called to, but first and foremost, they have a holy calling to be the priest of their home and to raise them as fruitful children in the kingdom of God, to be, uh, to be a light for the future generations.

[00:50:19] Stephanie Gutierrez: We could not have ended on a better note. That was that rose to a crescendo and ended on a high note. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I’m sure a lot of parents have questions about that. So we’ll be posting links. You’d mentioned we could share the resources to that study. It is absolutely fascinating.

So parents, you will want to dig into that. And then not even just parents, anybody who’s ministering. To people in or to Gen Z years, which really, I think all of us are in some degree, shape, or form because there are family, there are friends or who we’re ministering to. So it’s a, it’s a research study that’s really worth digging into.

So we’ll post that.

[00:50:52] Rob Hoskins: Two major studies. One is called Guiding Children. We did that in partnership with Barna and that’s really about how to parent in the midst of the technological world and the digital world. That’s called guiding children. And I’m glad you can make that available, Stephanie. And then the other.

Big Gen Z project. As far as we know, it’s the largest ever study on the beliefs and attitudes of Gen Z around the world. That’s called our Global Youth Culture study. And we have national ones, even for the countries you’re ministering to. We have regional reports. And so, uh, one hope is God’s word, every child, we’re here to serve all the missionaries of the world and everything we have is given away.

So I hope we can bless you, uh, to not only be a more effective missionary, but to be a more effective missionary parent.

[00:51:31] Stephanie Gutierrez: Yes. Amen to that. Well, Rob, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it having you.

[00:51:38] Rob Hoskins: Thank you, Stephanie. My joy.