Donna Kushner leads seven children through the aroma of leather and past the grimy industrial sewing machines of a shoe-repair shop in Tijuana, Mexico. "These children are learning Spanish," she says in Spanish to the señora behind the counter. "Can you listen to them practice?" The lady nods. While a stuffed armadillo looks on, the children recite the basic Spanish phrases they memorized the hour before.

Donna leads the children to more stores for practice. At a tortilla factory, a manager hands each child a hot tortilla and asks if they are from a school. They are, in a way. Their parents are being trained as missionaries at Agape International Training, and they take part in its corresponding program for children. With each stop, the kids' shyness at learning a new language morphs into confidence, and it thrills Donna to see.

Since 1973, Campus Crusade for Christ has been sending their overseas missionaries to AIT for training. They learn how to adapt to another culture, be a servant/leader and learn a foreign language. From its base in Bakersfield, Calif., AIT trained 91 missionaries last year, including 13 families with 28 children combined.

Children used to sit in childcare while their parents ventured out. But that's changed. In fact, a lot has changed in the way AIT trains people since Donna Kushner joined the team in 1993.

Donna and her husband, Yale, joined AIT after serving nine years overseas. Yale came to coach male missionaries. Though she's a mom to four children—Amy, 21, Sarah, 19, Zach, 15, and Danica, 11—Donna had plenty of ideas of her own.

For instance, she decided that children could benefit from cross-cultural training, so she designed weekly afterschool sessions for them. They receive their own Youth Track notebook, play games with lessons, study the Bible and get lots of hands-on learning, like language practice south of the border.

But it's not just the children who've benefited from Donna's ideas. Knowing firsthand that missionary marriages encounter extra stress, Donna invited Michael Sampley, a marriage-and-family therapist, to speak to the parents and other couples. Michael teaches them how personality differences affect marriages, and discusses the styles with which husbands and wives communicate.

The couples come to the Kushner home for sessions with Michael. Seated in the chair where Donna once rocked her babies, or on the blue, tufted French sofa, the couples respond to the sensitive topics Michael introduces.

"Yale and Donna let the participants into their home and let them look at their lives and marriage," says Michael. "Yale and Donna are open and very good about talking about their own journey."

Donna has brought other innovative sessions to the AIT classroom for the adults. One day she started class by speaking French and wildly motioning for them to get in groups to play a game. She wants the adults to understand how children feel when they enter a school that employs another language.

	Family Matters | Yale Kushner cradles Derrick and Ann's daughter Claire in the kitchen.

As Donna speaks, a squeaky door at the back of the room distracts some. Yale gets up, slips out quietly through another door, then returns with a can of WD-40 and squirts the door hinge. Yale moves behind the scenes, enhancing what goes on in front.

"We haven't always worked well together," says Donna. "But in the last few years we've learned to be a team. We couldn't have Family Track or the MK [missionary kids] ministry if we weren't both working on it. It's not something I could do by myself."

If Donna is the Kushner visionary, thrusting the family into gear, Yale is the oil that keeps the machinery moving smoothly.

"Donna is strong with her ideas, quick and intelligent," says Don Urquhart, director of AIT. "A lot of guys would be intimidated, but not Yale. There's a real strength in their relationship."

"My mom loves what she does," says Sarah Kushner. "She's passionate about it, so sometimes she bites off too much. Then she gets a little stressed, but she gets it all done."

When Donna's ideas get her in over her head, those around her, including Yale, usually bail her out. "Donna," says Yale, standing by their kitchen counter, "just give me a list of everything we need to do."

Donna's zeal for mission work goes back to her early days as a Christian. Several years after receiving Christ at age 14, she went on a six-week mission trip to Italy with Operation Mobilization. On the way, Donna's group stopped at a training session in Belgium where the youth prayed country by country in front of a map that stretched across a gymnasium.

"That was the first time I ever realized there was a whole world out there that needed Christ," says Donna. "Once I saw it visually, and heard about the need for people to go, it just didn't make any sense not to go."

Several years later, Donna met Yale at college and they married. In 1981 they joined Campus Crusade full time; after two years working on an American campus, they received an international assignment and went through AIT with two young daughters.

They returned stateside nine years later, toting two more children and a greater understanding of the benefits and challenges of missionary family life. "We loved our AIT experience," says Donna. "But overseas there were some bumps in the road for us, and we felt like, 'Wow, that wasn't even talked about at AIT.'"

Donna points to a 1996 finding by the World Evangelical Fellowship Missions Commission that 14.4 percent of overseas missionaries leave the field because of their children's needs. To counter this, Donna recruited teacher Karen McDuff to be an educational consultant. Karen now helps families develop education plans for their children, supports them on the field by answering e-mailed questions, or visits them to administer educational testing.

For Donna, ministry and motherhood are intertwined. She cheers for Danica at soccer games and watches proudly as Zach marches with his ROTC group. She also raves to her kids about the value of mission projects, so not surprisingly, all four children have gone on international projects.

Donna's oldest daughter, Amy, was 13 when her parents moved from Paris to Bakersfield. But Amy has retained more than the language. She has returned to France for three summers, once working as a cultural liaison to a group of French and American students. Last year, Amy took a year off from her studies at UCLA to minister to college students in France. "I was an American going into France, but knowing how to become French," says Amy. "I could pass for French not only in language but also in my expressions."

"MKs [missionary kids] are a step ahead of us," says Donna. "It's like they're already on the sprint and we're still back at the blocks. The potential they have is huge."

Turning Pages | Abraham Bok-Kee and wife Sarah Su-Do Kim Choi present their "Old World/New World" project over dinner at Guiseppi's. Donna asks couples to illustrate pages with important people, places, things and activities from where they've been and where they're going. The many moves missionaries make force them to learn to grieve losses while looking expectantly ahead.

Seeing that potential, Donna started a new ministry called MK2MK. During weekend conferences, missionary youth learn from older MKs on how to better understand themselves, how to connect with others like them and how to make the most of their cross-cultural abilities. Last year, MK2MK trained eight adult MKs and will train another eight this summer; these men and women lead the weekend conferences. MK2MK also sends e-mail and "care packages" to MKs who've returned to the States for college while their families continue to live overseas.

Donna's efforts have not gone unappreciated by staff members passing through AIT. Rev. Abraham Bok-Kee Choi and Sarah Su-Do Kim Choi, a Korean couple, learned how to set up a similar training center in the Philippines for missionaries from Asia.

"Without cross-cultural training we were sent to Hong Kong and then Singapore," says Abraham. "We did well, but we've discovered we paid too great a price."

"Through Family Track, I know my husband better," adds Sarah. "I also understand now why we had so many arguments in Hong Kong."

"Maybe if we'd gotten this training before," says Abraham, "we would have reduced our family's pain and still gotten good results."

If the Chois have left AIT believing that family life and ministry are closely intertwined, it's due in large part to Donna Kushner. Even now, while standing in her kitchen stirring her family's dinner, she's cooking up new ideas to strengthen missionary families.

For more information, visit www.aitusa.org or www.mk2mk.org, or call (661) 861-1043.