Family and Sexuality
In many sending countries the family seems to be disintegrating as the divorce rate increased during the 20th century. In addition the incidence of sex before marriage increased at the same time. These changes have had an impact on the missionary force. The chapter about adolescence shows how adolescence itself is a cultural invention of the last century and a half. The chapters about separation because of ministry responsibilities and other kinds of sexual stress give suggestions for building stronger marriage relationships and avoiding marriage breakups.
Email and the Internet are wonderful ways of disseminating information, but too often it is the wrong kind of information. Pornography and Internet relationships are now available to anyone, anytime, almost anywhere. The chapter about such immorality gives suggestions to avoid sin in this ever available, affordable, anonymous situation. No one likes to talk about sexual abuse by people in ministry, but recent events in the Roman Catholic church have brought it into our awareness. Unfortunately, it also sometimes occurs among missionaries, and the chapter about sexual abuse notes ways to spot it and gives suggestions about what to do.