This quote by Hudson Taylor should be spoken against. This attitude affected missionary families and culture for the worse. The wife and mother should first be allowed to care for her home, and then have the outside responsibilities of church ministries. A great detriment has been done in many ways because of this attitude. The East did not need another example of leaving off normal life to live a spiritual life. The East, and all, need to see that the Christian life is a normal day-t0-day surrender to Christ and death to self. To neglect home, children, and needs of a husband for "ministry" is to not understand what ministry truly is. Many children left off Christianity because they felt neglect and attributed it to God. There will be time later for the missionary wife and mother to do more outside ministry work when her family is grown, but the early years that are lauded as so precious and impressionable in our own country are just as precious and impressionable for the child of missionary parents. From a Missionary Wife and Mother

Thank you, Joy. Your response was very helpful and encouraging to me.

lo q dices es la verdad, y te agradezco por ser tan valiente. nuestro primer ministerio es nuestra familia.

The point being made is that you are more than those things mentioned. You must be side by side of the work of the mission. You cannot be separated from Christ's work. If you want to tend only to your children and household chores than do it at home, not on the mission field. It's not a work of your choice (to be a missionary) but an appointment from God himself. Yet if you willingly lay down your life to the work of Christ then you will be both mom and missionary and more.

I am a missionary kid and I can agree with Joy 100%. However, when I became a missionary I wanted a wife who would be a wife and a mother. It turned out, sadly, that she did not share my burden for missions equally. I ended up off the mission field and abandoned by my wife.

I have stumbled upon this conversation accidentally but I'll weigh in for a moment. I have been on the "mission field" for ten years as a wife and mother (truly the whole world is a field with the potential for harvest but I think you know what I mean). We have lived in a very remote region among an unreached tribe of people. I agree that Hudson Taylor means literally what he is saying and, as has been said, it was common practice among missionaries to send children away from home for school, often back to the home country, or to boarding school. At the very least a nanny was usually in the home providing day to day care of children. It was indeed based on the fundamental misunderstanding that the Gospel work being done outside of the home out-weighed the Gospel work inside the home. As was also said, Hudson Taylor was a great man of faith to be emulated but not over-elevated, he was a fallible man and frankly, laying out guidelines that were untested as he was essentially pioneering modern missions. God has built into women the desire and need to be mothers and wives and the health and happiness (thus productivity) of the home depends on it. My husband loves the family dynamic that we have, he depends on my keeping of the home and schooling of the children and often reminds me that he would not feel the freedom to thrive in his work if I was not fulfilling my role in our home. We fought upstream against this when we were first entering the mission-field. An agency that we were initially connected with insisted that both my husband and myself become staff missionaries and that the income that we received would be half under his name and half under my name. We insisted that my husband should make a wage sufficient to provide for our family and that I not be given a staff title since I would be at home with our very small children. This was only 10 short years ago, so not much has changed in the missionary world except that fewer and fewer families are answering the call.

The reality is that to be a wife and mother involves great responsibility in caring for the household and children. It is certainly ideal but not every woman would have the privilege of and capacity to handle managing both mission work and housework. To disqualify a family from the mission field just because the wife is purely a homemaker and mother sadly does not seem to be supported by biblical teaching and ignores her service to God in this role. I fully support having a wholehearted conviction for missions, but Taylor's view is simply a man's opinion without scriptural basis. We must be cautious of adding man-made principles to what is meant to be a service for God.

Having being a Missionary wife, I truly understand Joy's point and Hudson's . There is a balance .....At that time then there was a serious need in China for true Missionaries. There was civil war at that time, language barrier,cold, hunger and many things that came about, and also many people wanting to join in the mission. He had also seen how some women nag their Husband and sometimes weary them out because of a need at home. He had seen how the joy of being a Missionary was quickly drained by the circumstances that befell wives of his close associates or disciples. He began to see that some Women are only good to be wives at home, they have not be trained to stand the worse at all. It was because of the Language barrier parents had to take their children to boarding school to help with their education. He strongly believe not every Christain woman can withstand the mission field, they are fit to stay at home with their children and raise them up. Hudson call was "if you must come as a wife then you must be a True Missionary, Women who are like Soldier's .... Women who are prepared for what may befall them. I am no where near these people in Life, My Husband and I had a call to be Missionaries, we left a luxurious place in a well known city at that time to go to a Village..... With no water, no proper toilet, no good school, cold , hunger mosquitoes, two cubicle room to share with the brothers with us. We had two little children 3 and 1 respectively..... We had learnt by the Lord not to talk to anyone about our needs but God alone because we believed he would take care of us. I remember my 1 year old daughter was hunger and there have not be food for two days and three year old daughter going to four at that time was lying on her stomach,, all of a sudden I heard my I year old daughter going to two then grumbling that she was hunger , I didn't care if she understood but I had to tell her what I told her sister about the Children of Israelite, how they perished in the wilderness because they grumbled because I believed they were children younger than my daughter amoug the children of Israelite. I had to die to the Motherly love I had for them and to see with God's eyes that he loved them more than I do no matter what, happened . We prayed as a family and God miraculously met our need, they saw the true power of prayer at that time .... I homeschool them thank God for free resources online that made it easy for me. We have had tougher times but we and the children learnt Through the process... We cry, laugh , weep , play together as a family, we have also had beautiful times when all our needs would be met. The Bible became very real to them because of those experiences and we don't regret every of our decision because who chose to take him at his word. If there was a possible way to homeschool, the mothers in ( Hudson's time) would have homeschooled the children because the Mothers missed their kids so much,, even when taking them to boarding school... It's only when we get to heaven we will see how much tears that fell on those Children. Having said all these, Unfortunately we have Women who have no burden to be a Missionary, no burden to raise Goldy children, no burden for the Church they are like Ostriches Lam4vs 3 who go to the mission field and becomes like pliable in the book Pilgrim Progress. Grumbling, murmuring, and depressed and we have many of them like that in Christaindom who do not know that as a Christian should be True Missionaries wherever they are and sometimes they are at home with these kids to homeschool because everyone is doing it and the child's character is not being formed... The child is rather depressed, or a gossip or something. I think Hudson's Taylor was giving a call for true Missionaries, not just tougue speaking, but of life, not just church goers but lively Women who can beat hard against the storm and tell her children , Husband and those around her ,We will make it.