I’m better than you.

Anyone else ever look back on their childhood and realize that many parts of life were heavily influenced by a completely unjustified superiority complex? Maybe that sounds a little harsh, but recently I’ve been curious about how growing up as a missionary kid changed the way I looked at the world around me.

Yes, I’m accusing myself of having a superiority complex. I don’t remember how it all started, but over time I eventually developed a bold mentality that made me feel more special than other Christians who lived “up in the States” (poor worldly bastards!). It’s not like I was ever specifically told to think I was more important than other people, but I sure as hell figured out how to do it on my own.

I’m definitely not blaming anyone but myself for my attitude. I simply believed that my position in life was a little more privileged—and therefore I was a little better—than my Christian peers whose parents didn’t make that oh-so-sacrificial commitment to spend their lives in some foreign country where they might never get the chance to live life to the fullest. That’s a ridiculously pretentious attitude, of course, since I had nothing to do with being born and raised in Brazil.

Sadly enough, I was so completely ignorant of American culture that I couldn’t even begin to relate to my peers when I came on furlough. I couldn’t understand them, and a lot of my own inability to make connections was due to the fact that I looked down on them and didn’t make very much of an effort to get to know them. Why? I have no idea. Some sort of birth right, I guess, a contract that granted me the ability to act like an asshole.

Basically, whenever I was in the States, I awarded myself the right to act as if I was a foreigner trapped in some alien land where the strange inhabitants were all narrow-minded, shallow, backsliding Christian wannabes.

I ended up selling that birth right for worldly pleasures later in life (totally worth it, of course). But the fact remains that for a long time I felt like I deserved an extra dose of respect when it came to religious matters—because I was an MK, goddammit.

What caused this perplexing worldview? Was it the endless pampering and catering that always followed me and my family on furloughs? Was it the tirelessly and hopelessly conservative ideals of my narrow little mind, which, when compared to those of my American peers, were downright insane? Was it the fact that I didn’t enjoy the same amenities and luxuries that they did—and I knew it, and needed something to justify my forced asceticism? Maybe a combination of these things? Maybe I was just a self-righteous fool?

Let me paint a few pictures for you to illustrate my aimless ramblings thus far. Here’s what my MK “superiority complex” might have been grinding into my brain had you examined it closely when I was younger:

Poverty—compared to most people, my parents’ income is horrifyingly low and we are a really, really poor family. As an MK who has seen “true poverty” walking the streets of Manaus, I have bragging rights whenever the topic of poverty is brought up. It doesn’t matter if you’re on welfare and can’t pay your bills, at least you aren’t pushing around all your worldly possessions in a shopping cart.
(Of course, when you considered details like the exchange rate, costs of living in Brazil, and taxes, we had enough financial support for what we needed, and then some.)
Answered prayers—my parents are missionaries. We know what it means to have real prayers answered. The only “answered prayer” other people ever have are cancer survivors.
(Not that I could really give any solid examples of answered prayers aside from “miraculous” financial bestowments.)
Soul-winning strategies—Americans don’t need to be evangelized. They already have the gospel, so who are they kidding when they talk about sending out missionaries to different parts of the United States? The real work is overseas, and it’s a waste of time to proselytize other Americans.
(I personally never told a soul about God. I’ve always hated telling people about God, as far back as I can remember.)
Physical prowess—all the people “up there” are probably spineless, obese, city-slicker pansies who couldn’t start a fire with a flamethrower in a forest full of balsa wood. I, however, can run barefoot through a jungle of thorns, kill poisonous snakes with a machete, and swim through stagnant alligator swamps without sustaining any serious injuries.
(I actually wasn’t that great at making fire, and managed to spill my own blood on several occasions using a machete.)
Suffering for Jesus—like anyone with two stories and a three-car garage is actually suffering for Jesus. Yeah, right. Show me no television, no microwave, and no clothes dryers and I’ll show you suffering.
(This from the mouth of a boy who enjoyed the Amazon River and rainforest and soccer and fishing and camping and the great outdoors all his life.)
Holy matrimonies—divorces in the church? Dysfunctional families, dating games, kissing before marriage? Oh my God, that just goes to show how lukewarm you guys are about your faith. If you really loved God, you wouldn’t have any of those problems.
(No comment, but yeah, the problems are definitely there regardless of religious beliefs.)

And on and on it went. As you can see, I had this weird MK mentality that efficiently pumped up my ego and helped me feel better about myself in a Christian culture I didn’t understand. Needless to say, it didn’t have too many positive affects on my social life. After years of legalistically shunning music, movies, and anything else that even remotely distracted me from pious, godly devotion, I think I’m still trying to catch up with life in general.

Anyone else ever deal with this kind of thing?