LR: Kenneth Copeland said to me about his grandkids, actually it was his granddaughter said it to me, that, you know—and I talked to Joyce Meyer about it. I’ve talked to Benny Hinn’s family. We’ve had all their kids here, kids, grandkids. We’ve got lots of kids that are missionary kids, all the way to evangelist’s kids, all the way to everybody else’s kids, a lot of kids here, and how unique, difficult it is to be a Copeland kid, to be a Roberts kid, to be a Hinn kid.
Kenneth’s granddaughter came to me, and she said, “You know, the Lord really gave me a revelation through my grandfather that when people say something, you can lock in and agree that it’s the worst thing in the whole world, and then everything negative will follow. Or you can lock in to the fact that it’s a privilege and an honor to be in a family that really does serve God, and the positive side will follow.”
But it’s all how you absorb it and make a mindset of it, the negative or the positive will follow. If you think, Oh, yeah, it’s horrible. I’ve got to run away from here because if I don’t get away . . . and then that will follow.
NC: Some people are like that about going to Africa. “I’ll go anywhere, but don’t send me to Africa. But we love it.
LR: Exactly. And when you realize it, that God puts families together for a reason, He puts children together for a reason. And Joyce Meyer said the most incredible thing to me because she said, “Your children are called to be your children. And they will fit in to your call because they’re called to be your children.”
And that’s what they came back from Africa, so many of them saying, that your kids were fabulous. They were great kids. And that anointing has hooked in to them.
DC: Well, they’re part of it. And that’s one thing that we always determined to from the very beginning was to make our children part of the ministry. Because if they don’t feel a part of it, if they’re not connected, they’re just going to be kids of missionaries. But they’re really missionary kids. They’re missionaries in their own right.
Our children are involved. They speak the language Hausa fluently, better than we do, all three of them. They communicate with the people. I mean, Toby was born in South Africa. He’s in culture shock here. He doesn’t know American culture.
LR: Exactly. And, you know, some of that way isn’t so bad.
DC: No, it’s not, and we’re thankful for that.
NC: Trey this past year preached his first messaged, preached in a church out in the village, so we were really excited.
DC: His own choice, nothing we forced him to do. We didn’t want to make him—even when we were here in the States and go to different churches, we don’t force them to get up on the platform and do their thing typically, except that I know they want to do it. Because we don’t want them to hate this part of life. But they’ve had a great life.
Trey and Tanneka(?), Trey is 15, Tanneka is 14, and they love Africa. And they’re doing great.
LR: We look at some of the product that has come out of our nation and some of the godlessness that’s come out of our nation, and there’s many time I think, you know, going to these nations where God is God, being in missionary’s homes where they have to depend on God. They have to depend on God for the next meal.
You know, there’s an enormous amount of—this may sound silly to someone, but I’ve been there—an enormous amount of benefit to that. Because their trust is not in the government. Their trust is not in their friends. Their trust is not in their iPods and in their myspace and facebooks. Their trust is in God.
And what a way to raise children. They are different when they’re generation in a generation like that.
DC: And, in fact, a lot of times they don’t even realize that there’s anything different. I came to ORU, and I had a great home life. I was raised as a Christian, my whole family. I got there, and my friends were not.
And I remember one of my friends on my freshman floor, we became very close. And she was from a dysfunctional kind of broken home, but she got money. She had a car. She got money sent to her every month because of divorce settlements and all that. Her school was all paid for.
I’m in debt. But she came home with me one fall break, and she said, “I would give up all of that for this any day.” And I assumed that what I had was what everybody had.
And it’s the same way for our kids. They take for granted almost the way they’re being raised, to live by faith, that that’s just normal.
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