Ahh.....Re-Entry

"My advice about coming home? Don't."
Japanese businessman

Boundary States

" Transformation is the true destination of transition, whether it occurs in a myth or in an individual's everyday life. How transition does that is a mystery, but it somehow involves being in a boundary state, where you spend time near a boundary between one state and another, or one life-phase and the next. The borders of Oz are everywhere, although the price of passage to the other side is often nothing less than your life- at least your life as you have known it. "
The Way Of Transition- William Bridges

" Boundary surfaces are everywhere the places where living formative processes can find a hold; be it in cell membranes, surfaces of contact between cells, where life forces are mysteriously present; in the great boundary surfaces between the current systems of the oceans, where various currents flow past each other in different directions- these are known to be particularly rich in fish; or at the infinitely extensive surfaces of the natural and artificial filter systems of the earth, where the water seeping through is purified and given back its vital qualities."
Theodore Schwenck

" Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination."
Andre Gide

Heritage

Critical to the development of an MK's identity is an awareness and acknowledgement of our spiritual heritage. One remarkable member of our tribe is the late Ruth Bell Graham, evengelist Billy Graham's wife. Ruth was a missionary kid to China and attended boarding school in North Korea. She re-entered the U.S. to attend Wheaton College where she met Billy Graham. They married and had five children. Ruth credited her sacrifical sharing of her husband ( with the world!)to her heart for the lost which was kindled at a very early age in China. Ruth's faith sustained her during her long separations from her husband. The poem below shows the depth of her character and her awareness of her identity in Christ as she departs China for the U.S. to attend college:

Test me, Lord, and give me strength
to meet each test
unflinching, unafraid;
not striving nervously to do my best,
not self-assured, or careless as in jest,
but with Your aid.

Purge me, Lord, and give me grace
to bear the heat
of cleansing flame;
not bitter at my lowly lot, but meet
to bear my share of suffering and keep sweet,
in Jesus' Name.

Ruth Bell Graham
Aboard the S.S. President McKinley, leaving China for college in America. 1937

Perpetuating Marginality

More from Mary Edwards Wertsch:

"....military brats spend a great deal more of their childhoods on the outside looking in than on the inside looking out.....Standing on the sidelines observing other people's in-groups becomes a way of life- and the outsider way of life that was forced by circumstance during childhood is then perpetuated into adulthood by military brats who know no other way to be....While it is hard to perpetually live the outsider role, it is harder still to abandon it. The outsider role is the central paradox of a military brat's life. A sense of belonging is our single greatest need and our single greatest quest- yet many military brats perpetuate their own marginality by making choices that are guaranteed to keep them on the outside."

Psychological Diaspora

Mary Edwards Wertsch, a TCK/military brat who authored the landmark study," Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress", writes about belonging and loss in this excerpt from her essay, entitled, "Outside Looking In":

"The first legacy of military childhood transience is what might be called the psychological diaspora. As adults most of us manage to slow or stop the moving- and yet still we find ourselves caught up in a strange migration. It is a migration of the soul, all the more mysterious to us because it has no clear origin and no certain goal.
There is only one antidote to the angst of the diaspora. Belonging. It is not easy for a military brat to learn what that even means, much less to find it. Yet belonging is the single greatest quest of our lives, a quest that lives in many of us as a powerful unnamed yearning.
My feeling is that it is crucial for military brats to put the right name to this yearning, face our unrequited need to belong, and address it as best we can.... Another corollary seems to be that for military brats, a prerequisite to belonging is grieving over not belonging and repeated loss. That stands to reason: it is necessary to break down the old immunity before one can become attached to something new. And belonging, more than anything else, is about attachment."

" I Have To Do It On My Own..."

"I had a profound spiritual life the year before I went to Taitung. I learned to pray to God and felt close to Him. However because everything in my set changed upon arriving Taiwan, and I had very little emotional support. I felt like even God Himself did not care anymore. I felt like He didn't hear my prayers. Later on, I found out God had been faithful to me, but it was my feelings towards my parents, my sister and my environment that caused me to lose my trust in God. Because of my feelings, here are the lies I believed:

'When I experience grief, loss and culture shock, God is not with me and He does not help me. He doesn't care how I feel and He won't be there to see me through. Moreover, significant people in my life will not be there for me as well. I have to do it on my own.' "

Spiritual Heritage Of TCKs
Cindy Loong

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel,
'My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by
my God?' Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary,and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Isaiah 40:27-31

" When a family embarks on a missionary career, they have chosen to be more stretched culturally, personally, and spiritually. This is not because God considers them better than others, but because God has chosen to reveal His grace through their lives. The pain of the relational, cultural and even spiritual gaps of the missionary life is part and parcel of the missionary calling. It is what missionary families sign up for."

Growing Up Global- What a TCK's Life Is Like
Compiled and Edited By Cindy Loong

Bridge People

The identity of the global nomad/TCK lends itself to the act of bridging: continents, governments, relationships, subcultures,schools of thought, war zones, nationalities. Global nomads straddle the dizzying chasms between different groups their entire lives.
Marie Arana, author of American Chica, a memoir of her life straddling her father's Peruvian family and her mother's Wyoming ranch family, writes beautifully about this tension:

"I love to walk a bridge and feel that split second when I am neither here nor there, when I am between going and coming, when I am God's being in transit, suspended between ground and ground. You could say that it's because I'm an engineer's daughter and curious about solid structures. I've always been fascinated by the fit of a joint, the balance in trestles, the strength of a plinth. Or you could say it's because I'm a musician's daughter, who knows something about the architecture of instruments. I've pulled string over a bridge on a violin, stretched it tight, anticipated sound.
It could be, perhaps, because I am neither engineer nor musician. Because I'm neither gringa nor Latina. Because I 'm not any one thing. I live on bridges; I've earned my place on them, stand comfortably when I'm on one, content with betwixt and between.
I've spent a lifetime contemplating my mother and father, studying their differences. I count both their cultures as my own. But I'm happy to be who I am, strung between identities, shuttling from one to another, switching from brain to brain. I am the product of people who launched from one land to another, who slipped into other skins, lived by other rules-yet never put their cultures behind them..."

Identity

"My upbringing taught me that cultures are not isolated, and perish when deprived of contact with what is different and challenging. Reading,writing,teaching,learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other. No culture, I have believed unconsciously ever since then, and quite consciously today, retains its identity in isolation; IDENTITY IS ATTAINED IN CONTACT, IN CONTRAST, IN BREAKTHROUGH."

Carlos Fuentes

RE-ENTRY

" In our attempt to reach the world, let us not overlook the reentry needs of those whose world has expanded, whose hearts have been broken and burdened, whose minds have been instructed and whose spirits have been set on fire."

Re-entry Guide For Short-Term Mission Leaders
Lisa Espineli-Chin

BOTH / AND MOSAICS

These mosaics were done by MKs at InnerCHANGE conference. They represent the incredible cultural uniqueness of each child (eg.Cambodian/American,Venezuelan/German/American,Guatemalan/Venezuelan). They are a reminder that the formation of a cultural identity is not an EITHER/OR choice but rather a BOTH/AND incorporation of all cultural influences. The end result is a lot like a beautiful mosaic. I cannot wait to see the gorgeous and utterly unique ways in which each of these kids grows into their cultural identity.

Homes Sweet Homes

I just got home from InnerCHANGE conference where I was lucky enough to get to hang out with 15 missionary kids for five days. We did a lot of cool stuff together including spending a part of each day brainstorming what exactly InnerCHANGE kids have in common. We then immortalized our list on a HUGE banner showing each kid's unique collection of "homes". Most kids had at least four places they felt a strong connection to.

So, in their own words, InnerCHANGE kids share these traits:

- We are an order among the poor
- We are RADICAL
- We are scattered
- We are adaptable
- We are like family
- We are united
- We share friendship
- We have a 3D worldview
- We are as tough as nails! (They really are!)

Spending time with these kids reinforced my long held belief that MKs are my favourite people group. :)

Why I Love Missionary Kids....

I just had the incredible privilege of helping some missionary kids prepare for a major move. I had a wonderful time with them (they were amazing kids!) and plenty of opportunity to ruminate over why it is that I am so utterly devoted to missionary kids: :)

- They come from good stock-MKs have parents who are passionate and courageous enough to follow God's call to be sojourners. That trickles down in a major way!

- To get a glimpse through their eyes is to see the shifting shapes and colours of a kaleidoscope. Host culture, passport culture, family, mission/church and school culture all colliding and reconfiguring constantly.

- I am fascinated by their HIDDEN CONTEXT: I love nothing better than to hear their stories, and boy do they have some good ones!

- I am blown away by their potential. The catalyst of an international childhood in a home with a focus on reaching people for Jesus churns out some incredibly intense, focused and skilled people with a passion for changing the world.

- In spite of their remarkable potential, they are frequently voiceless within mission organizations. Often leadership are not interested in them until they are old enough for productivity, missing a vital opportunity to develop, shape and hone people with gifting and skills naturally suited to mission work.

- I love missionary kids because the road they walk is difficult, confusing and lonely at times. They need the support of adults within the mission organization who are available to advocate for them and bear witness to the complexity of their journey.