Many have asked us about missions and how that impacts our family. In order to understand our stance on this you must first understand that discipleship is a process whereby a teacher teaches a student to do what he/she does. See Luke 6:40.
Part of the way that we disciple our children is allowing them to see us disciple other people. Our kids have seen numerous people in our house, over dinner, or in many other situations as we have walked with them and pointed them to our Lord Jesus. It is not uncommon for us to speak with our children about why we do what we do. We have discussed mistakes, failures, successes, puzzling situations. They are with us in evangelism and in difficult situations. They see us pray with food servers and others in public. They have seen people prayed for and healed. They, themselves, have experienced miraculous healings!
Once, when B-- was 3 years old he found my razor in the bathroom (parent fail) and decided he would shave, like I do. He was bleeding profusely and we were quite frightened. It was difficult to know the extent of the damage due to the amount of blood. Through his tears and screaming he was asking us to pray. So we stopped and prayed over him. Then cleaning the blood off, we saw that there was no cut. At all. Nothing. There is not even a scar. That was something that made a HUGE impact on all of us. To this day, when there is sickness or pain, our kids do not want medicine or to be comforted, they want prayer. The other night, E-- came into our bed room saying that she felt nauseated. We would tell her to run to the bathroom if she was going to throw up. We also placed a trash can by her bed. Several times she came into our room to announce that she was nauseated. Finally, in frustration, I said, "honey there is not a lot I can do for you." Her response said volumes, "you can pray."
Our aim is to teach our kids to do what we do. There is not a separation between family and ministry. Our family is our ministry and our ministry is our family. There is wisdom to be applied as to when, where, and how much we allow our kids to see/participate in. Just as our heavenly Father walks with us through life allowing us to go through various 'lesson' when it is appropriate. He never allows more than is right for us at the time. As we walk with our Father, He is telling us how to walk with our kids.