{"id":138838,"date":"2026-07-15T09:49:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banneroftruth.org\/uk\/?p=138838"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:49:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:49:02","slug":"postal-parents-the-experience-of-a-missionary-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banneroftruth.org\/uk\/resources\/book-excerpts\/2026\/postal-parents-the-experience-of-a-missionary-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Postal Parents: The Experience of a Missionary Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faith Cook’s\u00a0Troubled Journey<\/em><\/a> narrates her early experiences as the daughter of OMF missionaries to China. Honouring the faith, courage, and self-sacrifice of her parents, she also shines a compassionate light on the family deprivations brought about by long periods of separation from them. The excerpt below is Chapter 11 of the book in question, which cover Faith’s childhood between the ages of fourteen and eighteen.<\/p>\n

A passage on the P & O Carthage was booked for Stanley and Norah [Faith’s parents\u2014Ed.] in early January 1952, only eight months after our family had first arrived back from China. It was a subdued Christmas we spent together that year, the last for some years to come. Frantic packing followed, purchasing school uniform and preparing for the long outward journey back to the Far East, this time by sea. A round of speaking engagements filled the days for my parents and seemingly eased the ache of the forthcoming separation. As the day of parting drew ever nearer, I noticed a new tenderness in their attitude towards me \u2013 a tenderness that only added to my distress. And at last came the day of departure. It would be four years before we would see them again. Photographs were taken on the steps of the mission headquarters, as all joined to wish the departing missionaries well. Norah\u2019s expression told a story, as did fifteen-year-old Christopher\u2019s forced smile, for in reality, the boy\u2019s spirit was at breaking point.<\/p>\n

On we went to the station where our parents would board a train to Southampton. A large contingent of missionary personnel followed, for this departure was highly significant for the entire future of the mission, urgently seeking a new role for its operations now the door to China was closed. I found myself thrust to the back of the crowd as the train slowly moved off. Suddenly one more thoughtful friend spotted the irony of the situation and pushed me to the front to catch the last glimpse of my parents as they stood waving at the window of the train, my mother looking tense and tearful, and my father strained.<\/p>\n

Back at the mission home once more, we were at a loose end. No guardian had yet been appointed to care for us, although one or two kindly adults helped out if I asked for assistance. The Spring term would soon begin and I was glad. Some of my new clothes were too long and needed altering, and I discovered with alarm that the shoe repairer considered my school shoes beyond his skills to patch up. Never handy with a needle, I tried my best to turn up the hems myself. At last the third week of January arrived and I was on the train back to my well-loved school \u2013 a place I now regarded as home.<\/p>\n

Although soon immersed once more in all the trivia of boarding school life, I found time each week to write a letter to my parents. The first few letters were addressed to ports en route for Malaysia where the P & O Carthage would call: Aden, Penang and then to Singapore to await their arrival. Stanley and Norah treasured these schoolgirl epistles, storing them all up, until at last my father would present his married daughter with a shoe box crammed with letters dating from January 1952 until the time that he and my mother finally retired from missionary service in Malaysia more than twenty years later. These letters form a unique commentary on the development of a postal relationship with my parents that would form the bedrock of my security and development from a young teenager to womanhood and beyond. Faithfully my parents replied to each letter, commenting on my progress, chiding when they could sense my behaviour was becoming erratic, and offering advice as well as they were able.<\/p>\n

Not long after arriving back at the mission headquarters in London at the end of the spring school term, I discovered that a middle-aged couple had been appointed as guardians for the children of the missionaries: Louis and Nancy Gaussen. Understanding and kindly, they were well-suited to care for the children. \u2018Mr and Mrs Gaussen are very nice,\u2019 I reported to my parents, \u2018but they\u2019ll never make up for not having you here in England.\u2019 Christopher and I were the first two of the many who would ultimately benefit from the care of this devoted couple. As no accommodation was yet available for a children\u2019s home, the mission headquarters with its endless long corridors and exciting, if gloomy, boxrooms remained my home for the time being.<\/p>\n

The search for permanent premises for a hostel continued, but, with the approach of the summer school holidays, it was decided that the best plan was to use the mission\u2019s property, The Chalet, in Bidborough, Kent, as a temporary base. At the end of July 1952 my brother and I, together with two or three other young people, were taken there for the summer months. Because it was the very same house where we had spent a happy year together as a family in 1947, the place was full of memories for me. This made it no easier. I remembered the old snowman that my father had once made; it had stood on that same front lawn; there grew the same beech tree I had loved to climb \u2013 even the ornaments in the house were unchanged. But the sight of the eggcup shaped like a duck which Philip had always insisted on having for his boiled eggs brought back yet more poignant reminders of the brother I had lost. References to Philip can be found peppered throughout my correspondence with my parents: \u2018I often think of him,\u2019 I would write, \u2018I never realised how much I loved him and often long for opportunities to speak to him once more.\u2019<\/p>\n

Passing through the difficult teenage years, with in-built resentments against my situation, I was not an easy young person to handle, particularly as my guardians had had no previous experience of dealing with teenagers. But the love, patience and understanding shown by the couple towards the children in their care \u2013 motivated by a stronger love, a love to Christ \u2013 gradually conquered me. Before many months had passed a strong bond of affection had been established between us. Eventually a large suburban house with extensive gardens known as Maxwell House \u2013 formerly the home of some millionaire \u2013 in Chislehurst, Kent, was leased to the mission. By Christmas the home was ready and furnished and now twenty or more children were being cared for by Louis and Nancy Gaussen and their helpers during each school holiday.<\/p>\n

I had found my school a place of happiness and friendship and, after an uncertain start, had accepted my situation in the children\u2019s hostel. Christopher, on the other hand, faced a challenge for which he was unprepared. Wounded from all his recent experiences, it was not easy for him to settle back into the patterns and strictures of boarding school life. Disturbed and distressed, especially by the events surrounding our brother Philip\u2019s death, his behaviour deteriorated. Before long it was decided that he should leave school soon after his sixteenth birthday. In the circumstances my parents offered to return and Stanley gave himself to urgent prayer for his son. But to bring his parents back from the mission field would only underline to Christopher the extremity of the situation and for this he was quite unwilling. Christopher now took a temporary job serving in a Lyons Tea Room, and tried to further his education by evening classes. The bond between us was strong; to me, he was the representative of my family; I championed his cause, grieving and worrying if he was in any trouble. As soon as he was eighteen he was liable for National Service and opted to join the Royal Navy. The regularity and strenuous discipline of navy life calmed and settled the young man. But it was a personal spiritual experience of God revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, that transformed him. Here he found not only forgiveness for all his past but motivation for living. Yet the scars remained, and Christopher would carry the marks of his early sufferings for many years.<\/p>\n

Reading through some of these letters to my parents, I discover a graphic snapshot of typical boarding school life: friendships, examinations, sports, achievements, misconduct with its inevitable consequences . . . The protective environment \u2013 certainly over-protective for young people from secure home backgrounds \u2013 was exactly what I most needed to give me stability and equilibrium after all my chequered experiences. Since early childhood, my parents and later my teachers had given me careful and faithful Bible teaching. At times I had made a personal response of faith to all that I had been taught. Then a loss of interest suggested that it had only been a temporary concern, based on the felt needs of a moment. But slowly and certainly, over the next two years I gained a clear and unshakeable assurance of the mercy of God through Christ\u2019s sacrifice on my behalf. Like many children of Christian parents I can never date my conversion. Only, as one so often bereft of parental care, I now knew the love of One who had promised never to leave or forsake me.<\/p>\n

Long rambles among Welsh beauty spots filled many weekends but these were also the times when I could feel most desolate in spirit since many weekly boarders went home. But there were compensations: one member of the housekeeping staff, whose own sister \u2013 a kindly person \u2013 had joined the staff of our school in India in 1946, took a special interest in me. As my birthday came round each year Pamela Harris prepared a beautifully decorated cake to celebrate the occasion. Miss Swain\u2019s sister, who together with her husband, Harold St John, well-loved leader among the Brethren, shared a flat in the school premises, often invited me to join her for a cup of tea \u2013 a privilege not extended to many of the boarders. The St John family, who well knew the experience of long family separations on account of missionary work, did all they could to ease the sense of loss I so often felt. Although my reckless daring still often led me into trouble, a number of the members of staff took a special interest in my progress and seemed to show unexpected affection towards me. And still I remained a firm favourite with the headmistress \u2013 a definite advantage.<\/p>\n

Telephone links to the Far East were either not yet established at that time, or else prohibitively expensive. Such a means of contact, regarded as commonplace today, was therefore not available to my brother and me or to others whose parents were abroad. With remarkable compassion and insight, the Rev. Elsie Chamberlain of the BBC arranged for a group of young people in these circumstances to broadcast personal Christmas messages to their parents \u2013 an arrangement which would later be extended to a second broadcast during the summer. Each year a different group of young people would be chosen for the privilege; I was among the first to send a live message to the Far East in December 1953. The nervous thrill of travelling up to Broadcasting House to record my message was one that I will not easily forget.<\/p>\n

Each week I continued to write to my parents and each week they replied. I poured out my affection in these letters, often heaping reassurances of my love upon them as I concluded each letter. Although I missed them sorely, the same triumphalist emphasis that governed evangelical Christians in general at the time had been carefully inculcated in the younger generation. I had been taught never to give any impression of unhappiness or loneliness when I wrote to my parents in case it brought them distress and acted as a hindrance to the work to which they were dedicated. The lesson was driven home on one particular occasion when I had asked Mrs Gaussen how to spell the word \u2018doleful\u2019. When it came to light that I had actually used that word in one my letters, it became a cause of serious concern in the home and even a matter for special united prayer lest the use of the word should suggest that I was less than happy. In my next letter I earnestly apologised in case it had caused my parents any anxiety.<\/p>\n

Time seemed to kaleidoscope in my mind as the months passed. In June 1954, after my parents had been away for two and a half years, I wrote anticipating their return as if it were imminent: \u2018I am sort of living in the future the whole time. You will come and see me when you come home, won\u2019t you? You probably won\u2019t recognise me at first . . .\u2019 In reality I had a further eighteen months to wait. Stanley and Norah, for their part, did all they could from a distance to ease the pain of separation. They sent parcels of clothes, urgently enquiring after their daughter\u2019s ever-changing measurements at any given time; frequently they stinted themselves to send a little extra pocket money to provide small luxuries which they would willingly have given had they been at home.<\/p>\n

A bond of correspondence was built up over the years: I prayed for the people mentioned in their letters; family jokes were repeated and expanded from one week to the next. I was developing a degree of facility with my pen and many were the lively tales of my exploits with which I regaled my bemused parents, often adding small stick illustrations to enhance the effect. The day that my friends and I decided to scramble across the gymnasium roof until one friend fell right through, amazingly escaping with only a broken leg in consequence, was graphically illustrated. So was the day when I myself attempted to ride bareback on an untrained pony.<\/p>\n

The weekly letters almost took on a Dear Diary character as I confided my problems, my joys, my quarrels with my friends, and most of all my growing desire to overcome sin and live in a way that would be pleasing to God. The fact of my parents\u2019 love and concern, even though half a world lay between us, was in itself an important stabilising factor in my life. In all likelihood these were confidences that I would never have shared had they been present, but for Stanley and Norah such schoolgirl secrets were a bonus to compensate in some degree for their loss.<\/p>\n

In reality, however, I was growing from adolescence into young womanhood hardly knowing my parents as people. I was building on memories of the past, and as the months turned to years these memories became blurred and idealised. I fantasised my parents\u2019 personalities until they became heroic figures of my imagination having few or none of the frailties common to the human race. Whilst they had been in China their environment had been one that I myself had shared as a small child and one with which I was familiar. Now I found it hard to visualise the steamy heat of the Malaysian jungles and the resettlement villages with many homes built on stilts where my parents worked.<\/p>\n

As I completed my fifth form studies, long postal discussions took place between my parents and me regarding the future. Miss Swain was anxious for her pupil to study for a degree in English, but there were serious problems in the way of such a course, not least the fact that my educational grant expired half way through my sixth form studies, and apparently the local Welsh authority that had provided it was not prepared to extend it. The only answer appeared to be to leave school and begin a teacher training course, open at that time even to young people who had not gained any subjects at A Level. I duly applied to Stockwell College in Bromley, Kent, and was accepted to start in October 1955, shortly before my eighteenth birthday.<\/p>\n

But Miss Swain was still unhappy. My progress on my A level work had been steady and satisfactory, and it seemed increasingly unfortunate to leave school without these qualifications. Then one night as I was casually enjoying a bath, there came a loud rap on the door; an urgent voice shouted that Miss Swain wished to see me immediately. Leaping out of my bath and hastily throwing on a few garments, I hurried along the corridor \u2013 that same wide corridor along which I had walked with so much trepidation those many years ago. What could be the reason for this pressing message? This time Miss Swain\u2019s face was all smiles. She had just received an unexpected gift of a sum of money and wished to use it to cover all my expenses for my second year in the sixth form. I was overwhelmed at the generosity of such a gesture \u2013 an act of kindness for which I would be forever grateful.<\/p>\n

To add to my cup of happiness, my parents were due home during my second year in the sixth form and in time for Christmas 1955. As the date of their arrival grew ever closer, my excitement, coupled with a slight trepidation became yet stronger. What were my parents really like? I hardly knew. And would they recognise me? They had left me shortly after my fourteenth birthday and now I had turned eighteen. As my excitement mounted, I had a strange new perspective on my circumstances: those who had never known the pain of the long separations that missionaries\u2019 children often experienced could never know that exhilaration of anticipating the reunion. \u2018God more than makes up for anything we go without for his sake, doesn\u2019t he?\u2019 I wrote, but added quickly, \u2018I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve gone without anything except you.\u2019 It was only in later years, and with a family of my own, that I began to measure the effects of the loss of home life during the long years of my childhood, since that first separation at the age of six. For the first few months of my parent\u2019s stay in England the mission suggested that The Chalet in Bidborough, currently not in use, would be a suitable home for the family. I wrote urging them to try to make alternative arrangements, for the memories attached to the house were still vivid and painful, and if to me, surely to my parents also. But in the event a joyful few weeks spent there together with Christopher went far towards baptising the home with new and happier memories.<\/p>\n

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