I grew up on these books and on the myth of the noble Christian missionary. I grew up idolizing the missionary families who came to visit our church and tell their stories during their sabbaticals.

I saw them as heroes, never once stopping to question my assumption that “native" people needed white Christian culture in order to thrive. Of course, I realize now I actually took that assumption from the visiting missionary families and the books I read. That narrative is written through the entire missionary ideal. It’s for all practical purposes inseparable.

Your story might be particularly timely this week as we’re reminded of what the missionary ideal did to indigenous people in Canada. A mass child grave at a residential school was just discovered, and Canadians are once again confronting the reality that they allowed three Christian churches, Catholic, Anglican, and Mennonite, to severely abuse indigenous children in the missionary process of “civilizing” them.

Children were taken forcibly from their families, forbidden to speak their own languages, forced to practice whatever Christian religion the missionaries told them to practice, and cruelly tortured when they refused. Many died of disease connected to crowded housing conditions and malnutrition.

We would all do well to think about those missionary stories and not to elevate the ones we’ve been taught to romanticize.