Once there was a young couple whose first child was approaching school age, and they had begun to talk seriously about what they were going to do. The problem was acute for them because they both came from families that had a lot of public school teachers in them. These were Christian people, but public school was simply what everybody did.
If they decided to homeschool, or if they enrolled their child in a private Christian school, they knew that the reaction in the broader family would range from kind bewilderment to outright hostility. They came from an extended family that was very close, and they were not quite sure that they were up to the numerous painful conversations.
Because of this, they had halfway talked themselves into “trying” the public school. Besides money was tight, and if they went the private route it was going to be tighter. The argument that seemed most compelling to them was the “salt and light” argument. “After all, didn’t Jesus tell us not to put our light under a bushel?”
They mentioned this to a good friend of theirs from church, and he looked at them quizzically. “What do you think about that?” they asked.
“Do you really want to know?” he said. “I don’t want to seem rude. Or be rude, for that matter.”
“No, tell us,” they said.
Without answering, he walked over to their home computer in the corner, and clicked on their web browser. “What are you doing?” they asked.
“Checking Priceline tickets,” he said. “I just got a newsletter today from an old family friend in Kenya. He is a missionary there, and one of the things he specifically mentioned was the need in their village for more salt and light. We could send little Sharon over to help . . .”
“But she is five years old!”
“She is salt and light, right? And they need it there desperately.”
“But mission boards require training . . . years of training.”
“Training . . . is that anything like a Christian education?”
They all laughed and the wife looked at their friend. “We have already fed you dinner,” she said. “But no dessert for you.”