MISSIONARY DILEMMA
From the Zwemer account, Tucker also illustrates the classic dilemma faced by missionaries with families: Zwemer’s wife and two youngest children accompanied him back to the Gulf region, but not to remain long. Living arrangements for the two older children back home had not been satisfactory, nor had the education of the two younger children on the field. Thus, Amy returned to the United States to oversee the family matters, a situation that placed the family, as Zwemer described, on “three horns of a dilemma” — a problem with no real solution. “If the wife went home with the children, some would remark that the missionary did not love his wife to let her go like that. If the children were left in the homeland they were thought to be neglected by their parents. If husband and wife both spent more than usual furlough time at home they would be accused of neglecting the work on the field.” (Tucker is here quoting…
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