You May Be a Missionary Kid If … (Part 8)

… You used old technology and loved it.

Posted August 19, 2016

Editor’s note: This is the eighth in a series about life as a Seventh-day Adventist missionary child. Read Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4 and Part 5 and Part 6 and Part 7.

By Karen Taylor Glassford

We didn’t always have the latest technology in the mission field.

In fact, the technology was outdated sometimes in our home countries.

But to us missionary kids, the technology seemed normal and even current.

You may be a missionary kid if:

1. You made calls back to the United States via ham radio and put through a phone patch.

2. You listened to 8-track tape renditions of the Heritage Singers or the King’s Heralds.

3. You used actual Xerox copiers or even way older mimeograph machines with blue or purple ink.

4. Your parents powered up Dukane projectors for Bible studies.

5. You looked forward to watching reel-to-reel movies.

The Sound of Music was a new release to us!

6. Party line phones were installed in most homes on campus.

The problem was the phones were rarely if ever answered because the incessant ringing was so annoying that most people left their phones off the hook or turned the volume down so as to not hear them.

7. Telegrams were the way you communicated in an emergency with missionaries in other countries.

8. You often numbered postal letters.

The letters could take weeks and up to months to arrive, and you wanted the receiver to be able to open them in order.

Karen Taylor Glassford was born to U.S. missionary parents in Puerto Rico and grew up in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and Honduras. As an adult she has lived in South Korea and Guatemala and gone on many short-term mission trips, most recently to Rwanda in May 2016. She currently works at Institute of World Mission at the General Conference.