How to Pray for the TCKs in Your Life

by Gina Sawyer

Third Culture Kids have spent a significant part of their developmental years outside the parents’ culture. A TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures they experience while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into a TCK life experience, the sense of belonging is usually connected with the relationships he or she has with others of a similar background. A Missionary Kid (MK) is a subset of TCK — they are born or raised abroad and have both the privilege and the challenge of growing up in their family’s place of ministry.

For over a decade, my husband and I have been raising our daughter in Uganda, in East Africa. We moved to Uganda when our daughter had just turned three years old, and now we have a teenager. We never imagined we would be here for this long, but God has moved in our lives, and Uganda continues to be our home. Our daughter is an MK, and it has been beautiful to watch how God has created her to be His unique child. A few months ago, I shared with our supporters different ways to pray for TCKs/MKs as they grow into the people God has created them to be:

Pray they know God’s love, and that He has made them unique, even if that doesn’t align perfectly with any one culture. And pray they would learn to be comfortable in their own skin and be free in who they are in Christ.

Pray that God would show them how much He cares and values them — not for being a Third Culture Kid / Missionary Kid, but for being His son or daughter.

Pray that God would use their independence and cultural savvy in great ways to show others His glory. And that living overseas wasn’t just God’s plan for their parents, but for them also.

Pray that they feel secure in their parents’ love for them, and that they always have a safe place with their parents. And that they have the assurance of God’s presence wherever they are and whatever they are going through.

Pray they would learn to be dependent on the Lord and not on their own strength.

Pray that they would love all people and cultures. And that they would remember to give grace when they can only see a culture’s faults and shortcomings — especially in their passport country.

Pray they would be humble and willing to learn from others and that they would treat their passport country as another new country they are getting to know with an open mind and open heart.

Pray that God would comfort them and walk with them through the seasons of goodbyes, grief, and transition that are common in their lives. And pray that God would heal the hurt and grief that come with so many goodbyes.

Pray that they are able to say the goodbyes needed but also be able to say hello to new people, places, and plans.

Pray that God would lead them to people who appreciate their cross-cultural knowledge and experiences, and will love them for who God has made them to be.

Pray that God would teach them how to build deep, lasting relationships with others and that they would be brave enough and humble enough to let people really get to know them.

Pray for God’s protection over their hearts and minds. And pray that God would speak truth when Satan is whispering lies about who they are, their time overseas, and other insecurities that come with living as a TCK.

Pray that they will be supported well by others (friends, churches, family, and TCK workers) throughout different times in their lives.

Pray for God’s comfort when they are missing family and friends from different cultures, and pray that people find creative ways to stay connected across the miles.

As missionaries living outside our culture, we feel your prayers. We need your prayers! When you take the time to pray for MKs and TCKs, they know they are loved and cared for by people throughout the world in different countries, cultures, and languages, which in turn helps them recognize that God’s people are united through prayer. Don’t overlook the power of prayer!

~~~~~~~

Gina Sawyer grew up in Texas, where she met her husband while attending university. After serving together in youth ministry for eleven years, they moved to Uganda in 2016. Their family has now lived in Uganda for more than ten years, equipping and training church leaders through relational, life-on-life disciple-making. You can follow their family and ministry at SawyersinUganda.com.

Learning from Elisabeth Elliot’s Epilogues

Two months from now, December 21 to be exact, will mark the 100th anniversary of Elisabeth Elliot’s birth—Elisabeth Elliot, noted missionary, author, and speaker, and wife of Jim Elliot who was martyred at the hands of Waorani natives in Ecuador while attempting to evangelize them.

Jim Elliot, along with Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Roger Youderian were speared to death in 1956, after the five had landed their plane and set up a camp on a sandbar near the Waorani’ settlement. The incident was featured at the time in Life magazine and drew worldwide attention. Elisabeth Elliot wrote about it the following year in the best-selling Through Gates of Splendor.

I, like many of my generation, read Elliot’s account and marveled at the faith and sacrifice of the five men and the families they left behind. And later in my life, I had the honor of meeting Steve Saint—who was five years old at the time of his father’s death, and who later returned to Ecuador to live with the Waorani—and Mincaye—one of the group who speared Nate Saint and who later became a Christian and father figure to Steve.

And I felt as if I were talking to royalty when I spoke with Marjorie Saint, Steve’s mother, over the phone when she called to inquire about purchasing a video I had helped produce.

Lately, Elisabeth Elliot’s life and writings have become a source for much discussion, in large part focused on her influence on modern Evangelical culture. This often comes from those who are critical of how her views have affected such areas as purity culture and complementarianism.

My interest here is not to tackle how others are interpreting Elliot’s effect on these issues but rather to look at how Elliot herself has interpreted, and reinterpreted, the well-known missionary story she’s been a part of.

In reviewing Lucy S. R. Austen’s 2023 biography, Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, Thomas S. Kidd writes in Christianity Today about the difficulty in “finding the right tone” when dealing with people such as Elliot:

Some Christian authors choose a hagiographical approach, presenting their subjects in a holy, inspirational light. In recent years, growing numbers of iconoclastic authors—especially academics—have gone to the other extreme, reviling once-revered evangelical figures and judging them irredeemable due to their complicity in various sins.

Elliot addresses this sort of dichotomy in a later epilogue to The Savage My Kinsman, which she wrote about her first of two years working with the Waorani after moving to their village with her three-year-old daughter to serve alongside Rachel Saint, Nate’s sister. The book was first published in 1961, and Elliot added the epilogue to a new edition that came out twenty years later. In it, she writes that there are two “dangerous” extremes in the way Christians interpret life, and the stories we tell:

One is the sheer triumphalism which is the coin of much religious telecasting. Make it appealing. Make it cheap. Make it easy. Be a Christian and watch your difficulties dissolve. Obey God and everything you touch will turn to gold. The other is the exposé. Out of a very muddy notion of something called equality, and perhaps also out of an exaggerated fear of hero-worship or cultism, springs an urge to spy out all weaknesses and inconsistencies and thereby discredit practically all human effort, especially when its intention is an unselfish one.

In deference to being truthful, she explains why she left her work in Ecuador: She wanted to provide a better education for her daughter but also because the “differences” between her and Rachel Saint meant that they were “not in any strictly truthful sense really working together.”

“One of us, it appeared, must go,” she writes. “My decision was a painful one.”

To be sure, the life of a missionary, the life of a Christian, is a natural mix of victories and defeats. Elliot saw this in her team’s contact with the Waorani. She writes of the highs—“the Auca [Waorani] Indians were finally reached”—and lows —”nine children were left fatherless”—the joys—“the Aucas heard the gospel”—and sorrows—“they also got polio.” And her list goes on.

“How we long,” she continues, “to point to something—anything—and say, ‘This works! This is sure!’ But if it is something other than God Himself we are destined for disappointment. There is only one ultimate guarantee. It is the love of Christ. The love of Christ.”

Later, she writes,

God keep us from sitting in the seat of the scornful, concentrating solely on the mistakes, the paltriness of our efforts, the width of the gap between what we hoped for and what we got. . . .

If I know who the Shepherd is and how to find Him, it is surely my duty to do what I can to point other sheep to Him. The effort to do this must not be seen in “either/or” terms—either it is flawless, and therefore a success, or it is flawed, and therefore a miserable failure.

Elliot addresses this again in another epilogue, this one added to Through Gates of Splendor in 1996, marking the 40th anniversary of the missionaries’ deaths:

[W]e are tempted to assume a simple equation here. Five men died. This will mean x-number of Waorani Christians.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Cause and effect are in God’s hands. Is it not the part of faith simply to let them rest there? God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. . . .

The massacre . . . was interpreted according to the measure of one’s faith or faithlessness—full of meaning or empty. . . . The beginning of a great work, a demonstration of the power of God, a sorrowful first act that would lead to a beautifully predictable third act in which all puzzles would be solved, God would vindicate Himself, Waoranis would be converted, and we could all “feel good” about our faith. Bulletins about progress were hailed with joy and a certain amount of “Ah! You see!” But the danger lies in seizing upon the immediate and hoped-for, as though God’s justice is thereby verified, and glossing over as neatly as possible certain other consequences, some of them inevitable, others simply the result of a botched job. In short, in the Waorani story as in other stories, we are consoled as long as we do not examine too closely the unpalatable data. By this evasion we are willing still to call the work “ours,” to arrogate to ourselves whatever there is of success, and to deny all failure. . . .

I think back to the five men themselves, remembering Pete’s agony of indecision as to whether he should join the others in the venture; Ed’s eagerness to go even though Marilou was eight months pregnant, his strong assurance that all would be well; Roj’s depression and deep sense of failure as a missionary; Nate’s extreme caution and determination; Jim’s nearly reckless exuberance. . .

Jim Elliot had famously written in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Elisabeth Elliot, writes in her epilogue,

[W]e are sinners. And we are buffoons. . . .

It is not the level of our spirituality that we can depend on. It is God and nothing less than God, for the work is God’s and the call is God’s and everything is summoned by Him and to His purposes, the whole scene, the whole mess, the whole package—our bravery and our cowardice, our love and our selfishness, our strengths and our weaknesses.

Most of us will not lead lives that merit best-sellers, but we do edit our own stories as we go, whether through our newsletters, prayer letters, podcasts, blogs, face-to-face presentations, or our own inner dialogues. We can learn from Elliot that we should not too-quickly place overarching judgments on our efforts. We should give ourselves time to grow in wisdom, to be able to recognize the good in the flawed, and the flaws in the good. We should avoid tying everything up with a neat bow or knocking everything down with a sledgehammer. We should allow our narratives to unfold with honesty and grace.

We are are not fools, but we are buffoons. . . . We are God’s buffoons, who would do well to leave time and space for the epilogues.

I originally wrote about this topic at ClearingCustoms.net, under the title “Steve Saint and Elisabeth Elliot and the Revealing Epilogues to Their Stories.”

Thomas S. Kidd, “Elisabeth Elliot Was a Flawed Figure God Used in Extraordinary Ways,” Christianity Today, July/August 2023; Elisabeth Elliot, The Savage My Kinsman, Ventura, CA: Regal, 1996; Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor, Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1996)

[Pen and Notepad,” Unsplash, Public Domain]

How Many Birthday Cakes Does a Cross-Cultural Person Need?

by Irene Gasser Rodrigues

I recently attended an online course on Time Management and Multiculturalism. In one of the breakout rooms, a Brazilian missionary working in an African country shared about a creative way to adapt to different understandings of punctuality. Can you believe that she usually baked three birthday cakes for her daughter’s party? I’m a fond hobby baker, but even I was wondering what doing this would mean for me with three children! But first let’s understand how gracefully she did it.

The first cake was set apart for the guests who actually arrived on time, usually Northern American and European colleagues, as well as parents and children from the international school her daughter attended. They would happily sing “Happy Birthday” in English.

The second cake was reserved for the next group of guests who usually arrived one or two hours late: their Latin-American friends. The almost endless versions of “Parabéns para você” were sung among clapping of hands, loud shouting and funny jokes about whom the girl would be marrying in the future.

While the first group of guests was slowly leaving the party and the second group would still be enjoying themselves, the local guests and neighbours would finally start arriving (around five hours after the beginning of the party). After the host made sure that the guests with the highest social status had arrived, the pastor from the local church would offer a word of blessing and a prayer, and the third cake would then be served, making sure there was enough for guests to take some home for the rest of their family.

Can you imagine how many satisfied guests attended this birthday party? Can you picture the toll it took every year on the mother who organized it?

Although I never went to this extent of effort to suit the culture of all my guests, I must admit that I admire the courage and the effort of this mother. I must also admit that I have organized two different events for the same celebration in the past and that I have organized parties cheating on the time of arrival by writing a different time on the invitation cards depending on the tendency of the guests to come late.

I have also organized bilingual parties, where everything that was said was simultaneously translated and the “Happy Birthday” was sung in different languages. I did organize some events where everybody was invited, with no regards to culture, language, family attachment, and other factors.

Some have been successful, like my 40th birthday that I organised together with my father’s 70th birthday. On this sunny day at a restaurant up on a Swiss mountain, I was able to watch how my diverse circles of friends would mingle, and all generations were included, leaving no one out. And it actually was the only time in my life I had enough money to pay for such a big and exclusive celebration! But I must also admit I had some other experiences where the different cultures and languages in the group didn’t connect harmoniously, and I suspect some guests left with a slight culture shock. In these moments I’d rather not know the things that are being said behind my back!

But the story of the three birthday cakes also makes me wonder to what extent we have to adapt to others, and where we should draw the sensible line of “enough is enough”? Isn’t there a moment where we should state, “This is who I am,” and people actually should start adjusting to us?

It really is a tricky question I have been asking myself again and again. As a missionary kid and now ATCK, I learned to blend in, to behave and to please. I have been living in an intercultural marriage for twenty-two years, and we have moved often. At present we live in Brazil, the country of my husband, close to his huge family. Our children and I have been received with open arms full of generosity, to the point that my mother-in-law wore the Swiss t-shirt to every single football game of the World Cup whenever Switzerland was playing.

I speak four languages without accent. I have lived on three different continents. I’m 45 turning on 46. And I must admit that sometimes I feel a bit insecure about being myself (and who is that exactly, please?). Should I have a strong opinion and deal with veiled discontentment or misunderstanding, or should I adapt to the host culture (that’s what we learn in courses about cultural adaptation, don’t we?) and lose a tiny part of authenticity, because it hurts less this way round?

My birthday is approaching. And this year I don’t want to have the headache to organise a birthday party. I don’t want to think about how my different circles of friends will interact, which language I should use, what kind of food I should serve, or if someone will feel left out in case a guest posts a picture on social media without asking for my permission.

I just want to spend time with those who really get me. I only want to spend money on those who are still going to be part of my life in five, ten, or twenty years. And this is what I will do—this year. Because of course next year I’ll be longing for a messy, happy party full of wonderful people again!

So I booked two rooms for a night in a hotel close to the riverside on my birthday, in the middle of the week, two hours away from the capital Aracaju where we live. I invited my husband and my three children aged 17, 15, and 10. Maybe I’ll even bake my own carrot birthday cake with small, sweet Swiss carrots for decoration that I’ve been saving for this occasion.

This year I want to be able to be me without the twitch of adapting to others and asking myself if what I wear, do, and say is culturally relevant. I want to speak Swiss-German, Portuguese, and French on my birthday. I want to read in English on my birthday. I want to be able to tell my family, “We’ll have breakfast at nine,” and actually know that everybody will show up on time. I want to be able to go to a restaurant where nobody from the church will recognize us and wonder why the missionary wears earrings and pink toenails. I want to have fun and giggle with the kids and flee from the heat in the refuge of an air-conditioned room when I feel I need some time alone.

Does that make me a selfish missionary going through a midlife crisis?

~~~~~~~

Irene Gasser Rodrigues was born and raised in Togo as a daughter of Swiss missionaries. She is married to a Brazilian, and they have three children. With degrees in education and musicology, she is multilingual and has been working in cross-cultural settings for twenty-two years across three continents. She loves to bake delicious treats and shares her passion for languages through teaching. She currently lives in Brazil volunteering with WEC Brazil in the area of MK care, as well as reaching the expats in the city of Aracaju through the initiative “Café internacional.” She’s also the admin of the “FIGT Parenting group,” a space where parents on the move can encourage each other. You can find her on social media on @irenegasserrodrigues, @geleiasdairene, and @fluentecomirene.

 

A Life of Goodbyes (on the hidden grief of living between worlds)

by Patricia Paulichen

As I sit down to write this 2,836 kilometres from home, I find myself reflecting on the weight of missionary life. In the past few years, I have said goodbye more times than I can count. Some I saw coming, some I didn’t, and some were for the last time.

In 2023, while I was on the field, my father suddenly passed away at the age of sixty-three. In 2024, we returned on furlough because my husband’s father was in palliative care. Several weeks later, I unexpectedly found myself at my own mother’s bedside as she took her last breath in my arms, also at the age of sixty-three.

I was with her in the hospital a few days before she passed. For the first time in my life, she allowed me to fully show her love without hesitation. After decades of pushing away both me and my God, she was finally open to placing her faith and trust in Christ mere hours before her passing. It was a gift of two and a half days, a blessing I never thought I would receive.

As I sit here reflecting on those losses, I find myself returning to a sentence I first heard at our missionary training graduation — a sentence that has echoed in my mind ever since: “Missionary life is a life of goodbyes.”

At the time, I understood the words intellectually. Years later, I understand them differently.

Every goodbye — to family, friends, fellow missionaries, churches, and even the people we serve — leaves its mark. Whether we are on the field or in our passport country, it often feels as though we are always saying farewell to someone or something we care for deeply.

The commencement speaker who explained that missionary life is a life of goodbyes was a pastor from Oregon who had several children in our graduating class. His message was not just theoretical; it was deeply personal. He was about to watch his three grown children leave for vastly different and dangerous foreign fields. As a father, he understood the weight of separation, the reality of sacrifice, and the pain of watching those he loved answer God’s call.

A short while later, this beloved father and pastor passed away while his children were serving overseas. While his words carried weight when I first heard them, they took on an even deeper meaning after that. Eight years later, those words still remind me of the reality of serving God across cultures: Love and loss often walk hand in hand. Following God’s call means learning to carry both deep joy and deep grief at the same time.

Will We Ever Meet Again?

Before I became a missionary, the Lord had already begun preparing me for a life of change. As a child, my family moved frequently. Through those transitions, I learned that saying goodbye is a normal part of life. Relationships are seasonal.

Years later, close friends spent a week with us before leaving to serve full-time in a hostile country. Throughout their visit, one question kept running through my mind: Will I ever see you again?

By God’s grace, I did. Several years later, while home on furlough, they spent another week with us. We cherished every moment together. But when it was time for them to leave again, neither of us could speak. We simply held each other for several long minutes. The look on our faces said everything.

Will we ever meet again? And if so, when?

By the time they returned for their next furlough, we would already be serving on our own mission field, separated by even more distance.

The First Goodbye Is Only the Beginning

When preparing to leave, most of us expect the first goodbye. We sell our homes, reduce possessions to a handful of boxes and suitcases, visit relatives one last time, and say farewell to our church family before boarding a plane for a new country.

Once we set foot overseas, our hearts become divided between two worlds — the family and culture we come from and the people God has called us to serve. We begin carrying the joys and sorrows of both places.

My siblings now live on two different continents while I minister on a third. I have nieces and nephews growing up far too quickly. I long to spend time with them, spoil them, and, as the only Christian in my family, teach them about the things of the Lord. Yet oceans separate us.

At the same time, I love the people God has called us to minister to. Some are our spiritual children—people who came to Christ after we arrived. Having to bid them farewell when we leave for furlough brings its own ache. We wonder how they are doing, what struggles they are facing, and what moments we have missed while we were away.

Our children carry their own burden of goodbyes. They leave friends, church family, and the only home many have known. Eventually, many missionary children leave the field as adults because of immigration requirements, education, or employment opportunities. Ours settled in a fourth country on yet another continent, adding one more farewell to the list.

The goodbyes keep coming. Just when you think you’ve made peace with one, another arrives. The cycle never really ends.

Finding the Hidden Gift in Every Season 

Over the years, I’ve realized that goodbyes have taught me something unexpected: Time with the people we love is never guaranteed. Every relationship is a gift for a season, whether it lasts a few months or a few decades.

Because of that, I’ve stopped asking, How long will this person be in my life? Instead, I ask, Am I loving them well while they are? Am I investing in them? Pointing them toward Christ? Being faithful with the relationship God has entrusted to me?

Missionary life is indeed filled with goodbyes. We miss birthdays, weddings, holidays, graduations, and funerals. We leave behind people we care about on both sides of the ocean. The distance never becomes easy. If anything, it grows heavier with time.

Perhaps that’s what years of missionary life have taught me most: Each goodbye reminds me that every relationship is a gift. None of us knows how many conversations, hugs, or shared meals remain. We only know that while God gives us people for a season, we should love them well during the time He gives us together.

~~~~~~~

Patricia Paulichen is a Canadian-born Bible-centred life coach who helps women in ministry and missions find clarity, peace, and joy in Christ. She and her husband serve in Uruguay and are parents to two homeschooled adult TCKs and TCK kids-in-law in Europe. When she’s not writing or coaching, you’ll find her with a book and a cup of tea, exploring languages, neuroscience, and faith, wandering in nature, or lost in a K-drama. You can find out more at patriciamyralee.com and follow her ramblings at behindtheletter.substack.com. 

Prayers feeling stale? Mine, too.


I’ve been on a mission to revitalize my prayer life. It’s not that I had stopped praying, it’s just that my prayers had started sounding rote. I’d confessed to a friend that my words and prayers were coming from the shallow surface of my mind—whatever I could scrape together there that sounded decent—rather than the depths of my heart in authentic conversation with my Father.

To be honest, I felt a bit like a fraud. Have you ever had anyone look at you in your position of leadership and thank you for praying for them because they just knew you were someone who really prayed? Except you weren’t. At least not the way they thought you were. Yeah, that was me.

And I had a choice: either carry on with what I knew to be a shallow, mediocre prayer life or dig in, change some habits, and plead with Jesus to give me a heart for prayer.

I’ve never been one to settle for mediocrity, so I’m digging in, friends, and it’s been oh so worth it.

I’m still very much in the middle of my journey, and I honestly hope I never stop growing in the depth and conviction of my prayer life, but I am learning. So I want to offer a couple of suggestions in case your prayers could use a wake-up, too.

  1. It’s okay not to pray. I know that sounds terrible, but there’s nothing more deadly to an authentic prayer life than offering forced, performed words during a group prayer just because you think you should. Instead, just be silent. Listen for the Lord. Be humble. You don’t have to lead out in prayer even if you’re the leader in the group. Forcing it and faking it will be a poison to your prayers.

  2. Find prayer inspiration. What moves you to pray? Nature, music, photos of loved ones? Start there. Read good books, listen to sermons on prayer, study Jesus’s prayer life. I’m currently inspired and challenged by Lead with Prayer: The Spiritual Habits of World-Changing Leaders by Ryan Skoog, Peter Greer, and Cameron Doolittle. In the introduction they quote pastor Christian Dawson who reminds us:

The people who followed Jesus first were all taken aback by Jesus’ prayer life. They were fascinated by it. Jesus woke up early to pray. When He was exhausted, He’d get alone to pray. When He was successful, He’d get away to pray. When He was in trial, He stayed up all night to pray. It’s as if the first work and the last work that Jesus was up to was always prayer. Our Rabbi lived something that’s so easy to forget: Prayer, more than anything else, fuels our love for God, His people, and His mission to the world.

  1. Use prayer tools. If you want to strengthen your body, you might need some exercise equipment to get you going; if you want to strengthen your prayer life, you might need some prayer equipment to challenge and motivate you. There are currently quite a few prayer apps available if you don’t mind using your phone to help you pray. Walking, worshiping, and journaling are classic prayer tools. For many, having some sort of sensory reminder like a smooth cross or stone to hold while praying can aid their focus. 

One tool that I’m finding particularly helpful in this season is the practice of praying Scripture, and not just scriptural prayers like the Psalms or Paul’s prayers (although those are great, too), but any Bible verse. I’m currently praying through the Sermon on the Mount, and turning Jesus’s words, like “don’t worry about tomorrow,” into personal repentance and petition has been powerful.

  1. Share your desire to grow. I can almost guarantee that even your most on-fire, Jesus-loving friend is still growing in their prayer life. Tell them you want to grow, too. Tell any of your friends that you’re convicted about developing stronger prayer habits, and I bet they’ll be happy to join you in the challenge to grow. Satan loves to make us think we’re alone in our struggles—break his power over you by simply sharing with someone you trust.

  2. Pray for your prayer life. Guess who would absolutely love to help you develop stronger prayer habits? Yep, the same Person who invented prayer, who designed you to converse with Him, who for some unfathomable reason chooses to listen to and answer our prayers. Ask Him for faith to pray, really pray, like you’ve never prayed before. He is always waiting, always eager to spend time with you. 

Prayer isn’t just one of the spiritual practices we should be engaging in to be healthy; prayer is the lifeblood of everything we do. We can’t neglect it. We can’t settle. We can’t rely on our own strength, our amazing team or program, or what has always worked. We need Jesus—in our families, our missions context, our churches, our outreach programs, our schools, our businesses, our daily lives. Being with Him should be our first mission.

So, in light of that conviction, it seems fitting that I end with a prayer for you—for all of us:

Heavenly Father, our king and friend, please teach us to pray.
Teach us to be watchful in prayer, standing guard against temptation.
To be desperate, knowing nothing is accomplished apart from You.
To be hopeful, finding a mustard seed of faith for every request.
To be present, leaning on Your nearness.

Give us hearts that long to fellowship with You, 
minds that turn quickly to conversation with YYu, 
and bodies that respond in obedience to you.

As we learn to pray, may Your will become our will and Your ways become our ways. 
May forgiveness come just a bit quicker and compassion rise from somewhere deeper. 

Teach us to kneel in prayer, 
to walk in prayer, 
to rest in prayer, 
and to battle in prayer.

May we see awakenings 
and revivals 
and Your kingdom come 
in our day as we pray!

In the name of Jesus and for the name of Jesus, 
teach us to pray. 

Amen.

 

How to Walk Your Family Through the Re-entry Journey

by Shonna Ingram

My husband and I brought our four kids home from Africa at the ages of 9 to 15. They all walked straight into school in a country that was supposed to feel like home.

I remember thinking we’d survived the hard part: the original move, the goodbyes, the adjusting to a new culture, the years of figuring out how to raise kids between worlds. Coming home was supposed to be simple. We knew the language, the grocery stores, and we knew in theory how things worked.

Except we didn’t. Not really. Not anymore.

What I didn’t expect was how differently each of us would carry it. My husband and I were grieving different things, on different timelines, and neither of us really had the words for what we were feeling. So we didn’t say much of anything.

My kids were grieving too, but their losses were quieter and harder to name: a best friend, a bedroom, a favorite place to eat, the people who knew them without explanation. They were grieving a version of themselves that only existed in that other place.

Nobody handed us a way to talk about any of it. We were just supposed to be home now, and glad about it.

Here’s what I’ve learned since we walked this journey called re-entry: It doesn’t affect just one person in the family. It affects the whole family system.

A husband and wife can go through the exact same move and land in completely different emotional places. One spouse might be relieved to be home, while the other might be quietly mourning a life and identity that no longer fits anywhere.

Kids grieve losses in ways that don’t always look like grief. Instead, it can show up as a change in mood, withdrawal, anger, anxiety, or a child who suddenly seems harder to reach. And since our Third Culture Kids carry something even more layered — a sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once — they may have a home that isn’t quite a place anymore.

Over time we noticed that different seasons of the re-entry journey required different things from us.

For example, when we left, we tried to make sure that our kids said their goodbyes well. We also gave each of them one trunk to fill with personal things to take back. Some of what they packed surprised us. There were things we thought they might want to bring back but didn’t. There were other things they brought back from our host culture that we didn’t expect. I had to figure out what each of them needed there but not here. Then the opposite, here but not there.

When we landed in our home culture, our first stop was my parents’ house, which was fun for the kids and a safe place to land. But then we had to figure out how to buy a house with no credit, and rice and beans did not taste the same. 

We went through another phase that I was not expecting. A phase where it felt like we were wandering in the desert. Later, I learned that it was grief, and we found places we really needed to forgive each other, and we even found places we needed to forgive ourselves. This was necessary for us to thrive as we re-engaged with our new normal.

I know that this is our story, and your story is different. But there will probably be similarities to the seasons.

At Re-entry Experts, we have found that the families we serve aren’t usually lacking love or effort. They’re usually lacking a shared language. They need a structure, and they need to have an opportunity to sit down together and actually talk about what’s happening instead of everyone processing it alone in their own corner of the house.

That’s the gap we hope the Family Companion Workbook can fill. This workbook isn’t a book you read once and put on a shelf. It’s a workbook you can pick up while you’re preparing to return and walking through the first six months (Part 1). Or you can open Part 2 when, a few months or years later, something new surfaces.

The important thing is that you walk through it together as a family, either around the kitchen table, at bedtime, or wherever your family naturally gathers. You will create your re-entry story as you walk with a family in the workbook who has walked this road. You’ll also be given words, space, and activities to help your family process what you’re experiencing. You’ll find prompts for the conversations that are hardest to start on your own, with questions designed for different age ranges. For example:

  • Question for 5-8-year-olds: What was your favorite part?
  • Question for 9-12-year-olds: What did you leave behind that no one else seems to notice?
  • Question for 13-17-year-olds: What does home even mean to you right now?

We have seen that sometimes the hardest part isn’t knowing that something is wrong. It’s knowing how to talk about it. This resource was built this way because as someone who lived it, and as someone who has now spent hundreds of hours with families in the middle of it, I’ve seen what happens when families finally have words for what they’ve been carrying. 

Re-entry doesn’t heal through willpower or simply waiting it out. It heals through being known. Through someone naming the thing you didn’t have words for. Through realizing you’re not the only one in your house who feels out of place. That’s also why this workbook doesn’t stand alone. It’s the anchor for something bigger: our new monthly Family Re-entry Conversations. These small groups let you talk with others who are in the same season as you. Because sometimes what a family needs most is to realize we’re not the only ones.

If your family is in this season, come join us. We’d love to walk with you. 

And if you’re in the member care space, we have something for you too.

Our Family Debriefing Program gives you a framework to walk alongside families through a 5-day, 3-day, or 1-day debrief. You can use it with a single family or with multiple families, creating intentional space for them to process what they’ve experienced, name what they’re carrying, and begin to move forward together.

Because after ten years of walking with families through re-entry, this is what I know: Families don’t need to be told to just be grateful they’re home. They need someone to help them make sense of what home means now.

That’s what we want to offer.

Find the Family Companion here.

Sign up for Family Re-entry Conversations here.

Access the digital Family Debriefing Program here.

~~~~~~~

Shonna M. Ingram, PhD, is the founder and director of Re-entry Experts, a training and resource organization dedicated to helping families and professionals navigate the complexities of re-entry. Drawing from her research, lived experience, and years of walking alongside globally mobile families, Shonna uses her writing and time to advocate for better re-entry care in an increasingly global world. You can find out more at her Substack and re-entryexperts.com, as well as Facebook and Instagram.

Don’t Lose the Lessons: Processing Travel Moments Overseas

A year ago I shared a story with you about my experience in Vietnam and the beautiful moment I had with Jesus during a drive along the South China Sea. It was a way of processing and debriefing through writing. In fact, putting that moment into words helped me uncover the way my travels through Vietnam had impacted my heart.

I’ve been life coaching for three years now—representing hundreds of hours of sitting with clients. In sessions I often hear about a trip or vacation or place or moment, whether from years ago or a more recent time, that was integral in someone’s healing or recovery. I hear stories of faraway places, unknown destinations, and hidden secrets in countries around the world. I even hear sweet, healing moments from sitting on a park bench or visiting a coffee shop or finding a cute bookstore in the town where you live.

As a coach, I’ve been able to speak at conferences and hear face-to-face about how impactful it was to learn something through people, cultures, and the history of a certain place. I’ve participated in online webinars, courses, and retreats, knowing that everyone who attends is pulling out unique insights, highlighting growth points, or even forging hopes for the future. 

But what happens when the trip ends or a term closes or a conference is over? What does everyone do to let it sink in or make a difference?

I’ve always thought there might be a gap between the work we do, the things we participate in, the places we live, and the very real, very important lessons we are learning along the way. Many of us have:

  • Piles of forgotten conference notes
  • Book never read
  • Workshops never applied
  • Journaled prayers with hopes and dreams undefined
  • Moments with Jesus that lose momentum in the pace of a busy life
  • Stories that don’t make the newsletter
  • Personal growth that lags or fades without marking the experience in some way
  • Places traveled that we can’t always share about

I’m learning that having a process for verbalizing or remembering or intentionally going back through the travels, places, and moments is extremely needed and helpful for personal growth, healing, recovery, self-awareness, and spiritual health. 

This is even more needed in global work. We get to see amazing things, visit incredible sights, and drive unbelievable roads with the most beautiful views. We also see the hardest, poorest, unsafe, and truly difficult places. As workers, we have opportunities to meet, have tea, and talk with precious, unique people.

We need to remember, to be challenged in our professional and spiritual and personal growth. We need accountability to be purposeful and intentional with the things we see and the lessons we learn so we don’t forget the impact of it all.

God speaks to us through these experiences. He’s using this global life to work in our hearts, show us more of who He is, and become real to us in powerful ways. 

Are you paying attention? Are you allowing it to grow and change you? Have you forgotten the wonder of this global life? Has it all become so normal that you’re missing what He’s showing you?

Personal growth can happen in the moment but more often, it’s after, sometimes long after the trip or the journey that we experience something that our mind, body, or nervous system remembers.

I can think of a specific moment in Honduras a couple years ago. I was talking with someone and turned to look at a garden at the same time my nose smelled the flowers. My eyes welled up with tears, and I immediately felt the impact of missing a home I’ll probably never see again. I’d moved quickly and my time in that home ended without a healthy goodbye. This moment in Honduras was grief, nostalgia, hope, and longing to explore and process. The tears were saying something important that I needed to journal and pray about.

There was another moment in Texas, seeing a store that I recognized from South Africa. I felt memories and feelings in that store that I didn’t know I still felt. I needed to mark that moment somehow and give myself permission to feel it. I stepped into the store and felt transported back to another mall in another place across the world. I could see a pencil bag that I’d had overseas. I could read phrases that meant funny things in British or South African English. My heart remembered so many things in that small store.

I’m guessing that you’re feeling some of this as you’re reading this post. There might be a trip you remember, a place that still hurts to think about, a smell that instantly reminds you of a specific moment in time. 

Purposeful coaching, centered around these things, can be a healthy part of processing. From being new to the field to re-entry back into your passport country, reviewing your travels can reveal such valuable information and personal growth points.

All of this is why I love the idea and practice of a life coaching session or season of sessions to intentionally break down the travels, go over the notes, look for the lessons, and plan for purposeful future trips. Travel coaching can be specific to things you’d like to process or trips you’d like to debrief.

Having a coaching session scheduled can help give you space to process, debrief, and give opportunity for God to meet you in this global life. There are multiple ways that this can help solidify the daily lessons of living abroad. It can be helpful for men, women, and even couples together.

Travel coaching is for those needing:

  • Recovery and Rest
  • Healing and Renewal
  • Personal Growth
  • Spiritual Growth
  • To Mark a Life Milestone
  • Sabbath Practice
  • Debrief of Travels or Journeys
  • Discernment

Now that your mind is thinking back through flights, long bus rides, broken down carts, bumpy taxi rides, and questionable hotel or hostel stays, let’s do a little practice of processing what you’re remembering.

A Few Questions for Reflection or Journaling:

Before you move on to the next trip, team meeting, language lesson, ministry responsibility, or travel plan, take a few moments to consider:

  • What place or experience comes to mind immediately as you read this?
  • What emotions surface when you think about it?
  • What did God show you there that you haven’t wanted to forget?
  • What lesson did you learn that deserves more attention, thought, or prayer?
  • Is there a conversation, prayer, grief, joy, or celebration that still feels unfinished?
  • What part of your global life are you taking for granted because it has become normal?
  • What memory keeps returning to you, and what might it be asking you to pay attention to?
  • If you were to journal about that experience today, what would you write?
  • If you could share the memories, lessons, experiences, and trials with someone, how would it feel to say it out loud?

You might even set aside fifteen minutes this week to revisit an old journal entry, scroll through photos from a trip, reread your newsletters, or simply sit quietly with the Lord and ask, “What was happening in me during that season?”

The places we’ve lived, the people we’ve loved, the roads we’ve traveled, and the experiences we’ve had are not insignificant. They are part of the story God is writing in us.

Don’t rush past them.

Pause. Remember. Reflect.

And pay attention to what He might still be saying.

Honestly, it’s one of the biggest gifts of this global life. So take the opportunity to dive deeper into what you’re learning, where you’re growing, and what feels like it might be missing.

Missions and the Single Girl

by Rachel B.

We don’t talk about it. We’re trying to be content, to avoid comparison, or jealousy, or even covetousness. We’re trying to dodge comparison that dogs our steps, to avoid the ache that accompanies what can feel like a gaping hole.

We’re single women, serving the Lord.

We don’t want another sermon on singleness by someone who met their spouse before they even hit 25 years old. We don’t want platitudes about waiting on God, or how His plan is best, or how He’s getting us ready. I had the “letter from God” about how He would hold off marriage until I was ready to trust Him completely — and it stinks of fairytales. We’ve watched plenty of others get married who weren’t following God, who weren’t  “Proverbs 31 women,” who weren’t even trying to do things God’s way.

We’ve watched single Christian men, who say they feel called to missions, make marriage decisions that block that path. And we wonder, “Why didn’t you look at us??” There are HUNDREDS of Christian women already serving, already going.

We’ve prayed for an as-yet-unknown husband — both to find him and also for his life and health and relationships. We’ve questioned a hundred times, “Is this the one??” . . . only to be disappointed again. The enemy whispers that we aren’t enough, or are too much, or intimidating, or in the wrong place. He whispers that there must be something wrong with us, else we too would have been chosen.

We joke that “our husbands died at birth” or that he must have “gotten lost.” We drag our focus and our minds and our hearts back to God’s faithfulness, to how He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. We remind ourselves that marriage is hard (in a way we just can’t understand) and that God has good plans for us and for those whose marriages we surely don’t envy. That things aren’t as glamourous as they look from the outside.

But our hearts ache to be held. Our arms ache for a baby to call our own. We see seemingly everyone sharing pictures of days and adventures with husbands and children, and we often feel left behind.

Because there might not be a “someday.” And while the loneliness of this moment will surely not be forever, just because we wrestle our hearts to be content doesn’t mean that we don’t still yearn.

So please don’t write us off. Please don’t forget us. We have no one to bring us flowers. No reason to save and spend a kind-of-ridiculous amount for a birthday surprise. Or have that done for us. Too often, our holidays either slip through the cracks or are land-mined with well-intentioned but oh-so-painful questions — “When are you going to get married? Aren’t there any men there?” No, there aren’t.

“Well, you’re young,” changes to “Well, there’s still time.” The US culture is obsessed with relationships. We want someone to grow old with — the right one. We’ve seen the devastation of others who were desperate to get married.

We want someone to serve alongside. Someone to process with and laugh with and serve our great God with.

But more than all this, we want to please our Lord. So we stay, and we serve, and we desperately try to trust Him with it all.

~~~~~~~

Rachel B. is a cross-cultural ministry worker and medical professional currently serving in West Africa. With experience in ministry, healthcare, and team life, she is passionate about member care and helping missionaries and ministry leaders remain healthy and resilient as they follow God’s calling. She loves listening to people’s stories and finding practical ways to encourage and care for those serving Christ around the world

You Are Not Alone in This Estrangement

My aunt, my dad’s sister and most favorite adult outside of my parents growing up, turned on me a few years after I went to the field. I didn’t see it coming. 

She died last month and that’s why I can now share this with you. This is a story about estrangement, about a relationship that wasn’t fixed, and about God’s faithfulness.

Let me back up. With no first cousins and only one aunt—my mom’s brother died when he was 19—she played a special role in my life and the lives of my sisters. What complicates the story is that I come from a family where my mom and dad did not have favorites between my sisters and me; my aunt, however, was the kind of person to have favorites. It was never spoken of, but I knew I was her favorite niece. If you’ve been in that situation as a kid, it feels confusing (why not love all of us equally?) and special to be the favorite (I am the chosen one!).

When I went to China for my first summer program, she sent a check in an amount that was so large it stunned me. It came with a note about how she sat in many “missionary circles” with her mom (my grandma) and heard about China for years; and now her niece was going. It meant the world to me.

That was the first and only financial donation in what became my life of support raising; it should have been a clue. But like many of you have experienced, who gives financially and who doesn’t isn’t always predictable. I moved full time to the field in my mid-twenties and planned to only stay for two years. I don’t think my aunt was thrilled with the faith part of my life, but the living abroad was a great resume builder, so at that point I didn’t know trouble was brewing.

What had once been “three girls” turned into “five kids,” with each of my sisters finding their person—a detail that mattered more than I realized once the math of the family started working against me (more on that later). The two years on the field turned into nine years with me stepping into more and more leadership in my organization. I was thriving, loved my life, and was part of an amazing team. 

God threw a tiny curveball. The curveball involved a three-year study leave while still on full-time support to earn a master’s in counseling. On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks after I’d returned “home” but before my studies started, my aunt called to talk to my dad. He wasn’t home, and I was delighted to talk with her. That phone call fundamentally changed our relationship. I remember hanging up and shaking. What had just happened? I called one of my sisters. Later when my parents returned home, I told them about the phone call. Though everyone was shocked and confused, no one doubted my account of the call.

A few weeks later it was like Groundhog Day. Mom and Dad were out when the phone rang. I answered, and after that call I couldn’t imagine ever picking up the phone from her again. My family is a normal family with normal frustrations and fights with each other, but we are not abusive. This was new territory for all of us. Oversimplifying for the sake of space, while my immediate family supported me, no one called her out on her behavior, and I felt left alone to figure out what to do. “Abandoned” is too strong of a word for the situation, but I felt exposed, hurt, confused, and alone in navigating this terrain.

How could one of my favorite people attack me and have no remorse or consequences? How could my family support me, but from my point of view not take a stand and instead choose not to get involved? No one told her, “You may not like the choices Amy is making with her life, but you may not shred her verbally.”

Continuing with the simplifying of what had turned into a complex relational web, to protect myself I decided to not initiate with my aunt. She could have access to my “public” self. I did not remove her from my newsletter list (which, I admit, I thought was big of me) and years later I did not block her from subscribing to my blog or befriending me on social media.

I’d joke over the years that it takes a special skill set to fall from being number one out of three to being number five out of three, but it was true. And we all knew it. One of my sisters moved into number one and over the years reported how our aunt tried to triangulate between the three of us. Later she too fell from number one, but I am grateful that at that time and over the years my sister wouldn’t be played by our aunt’s manipulation. While our aunt has been difficult with each of us, there is something unique about me. Something personal. I am the lightning rod. Of course, I could offer my armchair analysis, but in the end, does it matter? I was the chosen one for abuse, in part, because I was a missionary. 

I knew of colleagues who had family members that weren’t thrilled with or supportive of their choice to follow the call from God to a life on the field. But I didn’t know of anyone on the field who cut off contact with a family member because of how they were treated. And it’s not just “how I was treated,” but a fundamental question of “is part of the cost to accept abusive behavior?” What would Jesus do? Cutting my aunt out of my life felt unchristian and Christian. But it also felt like my best option.

Time passed. I didn’t speak to my aunt for ten years.

Fast forward to a hospital room. It seemed likely my dad might die in surgery, and I thought his sister should know. I mentioned this to my exhausted mom, the only other person in the ICU room, meaning, “You call Aunt.” Her response to my volley? “You call her.” And just like that I had a choice. I couldn’t picture one of my sisters dying in surgery and no one having told me; I called my aunt. I called her every day for the next seven days until her brother, my dad, died. 

While the silence had been broken, the relationship wasn’t healed. A number of years later, the five of us “kids” flew to Arizona for my aunt’s ninetieth birthday. We all went because she was our beloved aunt in childhood. We went because our dad couldn’t and she was his only sister. We went because in our family, we show up for each other. Nineteen years had passed since I had last seen my aunt, and within five minutes the verbal jabs at me started. They continued for two days.

For the first time however, I had witnesses. The way she treated me wasn’t “in my head” or “blown out of proportion.” It was constant and involved everything about me as a person. The treatment was so egregious that my sister-in-law said upon leaving, “I am never going back. How Amy was treated was awful and I’m done.”

More time passed, and as she became housebound, I’d FaceTime her so she could experience nature, a museum exhibit, or a family gathering. Recently, in mid-August we got the call that she was dying. As I flew to see her one last time, I thought of her birth and of how she was held as a newborn by her mom. Much of our family’s spiritual heritage is because of my grandma. My aunt was held when she entered this world; for my grandma, I wanted my aunt’s passing from this world to be the same. So I went to hold her hand.

Looking back, I can see that part of why the pain has been deep is because what I thought our relationship would look like when I was an adult is nothing like what it ended up looking like. I knew others like me existed, but also like me, they couldn’t share their stories yet, if ever. This is for you. This isn’t a story with a nice tidy end, and it’s ongoing as now we have all of the details that come after a death. Her manipulative tendencies can still be felt, even in her death. Mostly I share so that you know you are not alone. 

Do I wish things had turned out differently? A thousand yeses. They didn’t. But the truth in my story is that God saw how I was treated and knew my hurt and confusion and He walked with me all these many years. I trust He is doing the same for you.

Is a Call to Mission a Call to Abandon Our Families?

When we as missionaries visit our partnering churches on “home” assignment, people are enthralled by our stories, and we’re often lauded for all we’ve given up. But there’s a potential dark side to our sacrifice — one that we must talk about openly if we hope to avoid the mistakes of those who’ve gone before us.

The problems were there right from the beginning. As William Carey, the “father of modern missions” prepared to set out for India, he promised his wife that if she refused to accompany him, he would rip their eight-year-old firstborn son from her care and take him along, alone. Dorothy capitulated. After one of her younger sons died in India a year later, Dorothy began to suffer from paranoid delusions.[1]

Although a colleague sought medical help for his struggle with depression, William avoided seeking medical advice for his wife and instead confined her during her outbursts. Not surprisingly, this only seemed to aggravate her condition. She would die of a fever fourteen years after first arriving in India.[2]

More than two hundred years later, we’re still struggling to understand how to care for both our ministries and our families. Not long ago, I spoke with an elderly man who had been a missionary. He told wistful stories of how he brought his wife and children to the mission field, and then neglected them “for the sake of the gospel.”

“Did I do the right thing?” he asked. “I wonder sometimes. I told myself that I was doing it for God’s kingdom, but now I’m divorced and one of my daughters detests Jesus.”

I’m sure you, like me, have heard similar stories many times. Are we missionaries doomed to have bad relationships with our families? Is that the price of following Jesus?

THE INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Our human relationships impact our relationship with God more than we realize. We tend to project a variety of traits onto God — traits outside of the ones He shares in His word — based on our relationships with other people, especially our fathers. We may project our parent-child experiences onto God the Father, both the good and the bad. The results can be devastating. If our fathers have abused, manipulated, or abandoned us, we find it easier to read manipulation and abandonment into our experience with God.

This also impacts how we interpret our calling. Abandoning and neglecting our families becomes part of the “sacrifice” of becoming missionaries. We don’t like it, but we do it in the name of obedience, while misguided missionaries and churches cheer us on.

Soon, cognitive biases come into play.

  • Sunk cost. We have spent so long believing something is true that the cost of rejecting it (and potentially rejecting our own past decisions and behaviours) becomes too high to consider.
  • Confirmation bias. We most notice verses that appear to substantiate our beliefs while overlooking those that disprove them.

This isn’t intentional; these are natural biases we all possess, but we must combat them if we want to live in the fulness of grace and truth.

BIBLE VERSES THAT APPEAR TO JUSTIFY ABANDONMENT AND NEGLECT

We may use a few Bible verses to justify abandonment and neglect. And yet — is there more going on here than meets the eye?

1. Leaving Everything Behind

Peter exclaimed, “See, we have left everything and followed you!”

Jesus responded, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

But what did Peter mean when he said he’d left everything? Peter had given up everything, and yet he went back home. He went back to his mother-in-law’s house when she was sick, and asked Jesus to heal her — and Jesus did (see Luke 4:38-39).

Incidentally, tradition holds that Peter lived in Capernaum. Jesus visited and stayed in Capernaum frequently. Could it be possible that He stayed at the houses of Peter and his relatives? In any case, Jesus frequently passed through Capernaum; Peter likely saw his family often.

2. Leaving the Dead

When a prospective disciple came to Jesus asking for deferred discipleship so he could bury his father, Jesus responded, “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60, NIV).

What if Jesus’ statement was not about skipping a funeral, but about challenging us to not delay following Him in favour of some abstract eventuality? If we’ve done any sort of fundraising, chances are good that we’ve encountered people who decline to donate because they’re saving up money, or perhaps they’re hoping to have a baby sometime soon.

Of course, it’s their prerogative whether they want to give or save their money. However, our futures have no guarantees. What if Jesus’ statement is really asking us not to put our potential usefulness for the kingdom of God on hold while we wait for an abstract possibility that may not happen for many years?

3. Hating our Families

Later on, Jesus turned to the crowds following Him and said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

Let’s keep in mind that this passage is directed not only to missionaries but to all people who call themselves followers of Christ. It’s a call to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, not just out of idle curiosity. It’s explaining the requirement to love Jesus above every other person.

This has nothing to do with hate. After all, the Bible tells us the second greatest commandment is to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Instead, this has everything to do with the magnitude of love we have for Jesus. This does not mean that we are indifferent to our families; this does not mean that we are indifferent to their suffering or their pain. This does not mean that we abandon or neglect them. This means that we subject our love and care of our families to our love of Christ.

We obey Christ, yes, but we make sure we provide for our families as well. We may have to get creative in how we go about it. Providing for our families may require us to give up some of our dreams or forgo some of the ministries we would have engaged in if we were single. But we trust that God will use our limitations to showcase His glory, and we don’t treat our families as an impediment or a grudging afterthought.

BIBLE VERSES THAT EXPLICITLY TEACH AGAINST ABANDONMENT AND NEGLECT

There are also quite a few areas of the Bible that actively disprove the idea that we should abandon or neglect our families.

1. Jesus’s Behaviour

When Jesus was on the cross, dying, He gave His apostle John the responsibility of taking care of His mother (John 19:26-27). This was the oldest son’s job in Jewish culture, and Jesus had passed it on to John. The implication is that Jesus had been fulfilling His familial duty up until that point.[3] No one can take care of our spouses and children the way we can. They still depend on us, not just financially but emotionally and spiritually. Following in Jesus’ footsteps, we cannot ignore or dismiss their needs.

2. Paul’s Admonitions

In the act of becoming spouses and parents, we sign on to a set of obligations: the obligation to care for, to cherish, to protect, and to nurture our loved ones. These precious people have been entrusted to us—by God. We are their family. No one else can care for them the way we can.

The apostle Paul remarked on this in one of his letters to the Corinthian church:

I want you to walk free from worry about these things. A man who is not married can give all his time to please our [Lord]. But a man who is married will have to give more of his time to the things of this world in order to please his wife. It is the same for a woman who is not married, or for a young maiden. They are able to give all their time to our [Lord], to keep their body and spirit holy and pleasing to him. But a married woman will have to give more of her time to the things of this world in order to please her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:33-34, First Nations Version)

The Bible does not make these responsibilities optional. It takes for granted as a foundational assumption that once we are married, we are obligated to please our spouses.

Paul later goes on to say, “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Dare we go out to proclaim the gospel as missionaries while simultaneously denying our faith and embracing a status “worse than an unbeliever”?

3. Teaching on Corban

Looking at the apostle Paul’s biblical teachings on marriage and family, it’s clear that God expects us to attend to our families and spouses with great care. If we use our calling as missionaries to avoid doing this, we are engaging in the practice of Corban: treating our obligations to our family as having instead been donated to God. The Pharisees engaged in this practice, and Jesus castigated them for “invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down” (Mark 7:11-13). Jesus would castigate us, too.

MESSENGER AND MESSAGE

In the West, we’ve grown accustomed to our mentalities of taxidermy and classification. We feel that we can separate and categorize different actions and behaviours. For example: how I treat the church is different than how I treat my family.

In the Majority World, however, this does not hold. The Majority World sees people and relationships much more holistically. The people we’re witnessing to watch our interactions with our family, and this becomes part of our witness. I can’t tell you how many times our Japanese friends and acquaintances have exclaimed in surprise when my husband Peter gets up after a meal to clean the dishes.

I continue to be startled by the number of Japanese women who come up to me privately and whisper the question, “Do you and Peter ever fight?” Of course we do, and I tell them so. But the harmony in our relationship seems to have a significant impact on the people around us.

Over our past fifteen years of ministry in Japan, we’ve come to realize:

The messenger is part of the message.

What we do with, and to, our marriages and families matters. Jesus told us this Himself: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Our love for our families as well as the family of God is one of the strongest witnesses we can have. As my Japanese language teacher recently said to me, “We Japanese are not convinced by arguments. We are convinced by how we feel.” If they are not attracted by our love, they will certainly not be attracted by our logic.

THE FINAL QUESTION

Dorothy Carey has been derided as “weak-minded” and “deplorably unsuited” to be William Carey’s wife,[4] but we do the world of missions a great disservice if we disregard William’s coercive tactics, abuse, and neglect towards her. These things mattered — to Dorothy, and to God.

I suppose the only question that remains is: do they matter to us, too?

 

NOTES

Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are taken from the NASB.

[1] This might have been attributable to adult cerebral malaria (which can cause cognitive impairment, dementia, and neuropsychiatric symptoms) as easily as to a mental illness. Malaria is most prevalent in children up to 5 years of age. The son who died was 5 years old. Cerebral malaria is contractable by adults who have not built up an immunity to it, including those who have recently moved between continents. (See https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1471-4922(25)00040-6)

[2] Simonetta Carr. 2022. ‘Dorothy Cary and Her Struggle with Mental Illness,’ Place for Truth, https://placefortruth.org/dorothy-carey-and-her-struggle-with-mental-illness/#_ftn5 [accessed 29 August 2026]

[3] A nuanced look at how we can take care of our parents while engaging in mission is a discussion for another day.

[4] Carr 2022: Dorothy’s Legacy.

~~~~~~~

Originally from Canada, Valerie Limmer lives in Okinawa, Japan, where she’s served as a missionary with her husband since 2011, partnering with the local church to focus on outreach and discipleship. Their Japanese pastor calls them “bridge-makers,” facilitating relationships with the community. Valerie is the author of Captive Set Free: How to Find Freedom Through Forgiving and On the Potter’s Wheel, a memoir of disability on the mission field. To learn more about her work or to read more of her articles, visit peterandvalerie.com/OurBlog.

No Idea What You’re Doing? Girl, Join the Club

When my husband and I accepted the call to India, a man walked over to us and put a “mantle” around our shoulders: a yak wool shawl with red and blue woven trim. 

“I’ve worn this every day for two years while I pray for the people,” he said. “It’s yours to carry now.” It was a fittingly cinematic moment at the end of a year of preparation that had felt divinely orchestrated, like watching our lives unfold in a film.

I hadn’t grown up hearing about Elizabeth Elliot or Mary Slessor or Amy Carmichael or Gladys Aylward.  I didn’t have a clear idea in my mind of what a female missionary does. So I asked a few furloughing women.

“What do women in missions do?” “What do you feel is your role on your project as a woman?” “Do you have any advice for me?”

These women would get a far-away look, like their lives were flashing before their eyes. They would start talking and then get flustered and stop. Maybe they weren’t sure how to put such a huge topic into words. Maybe nobody had ever asked them to. Whatever the reason, most of the women I spoke with struggled to articulate their role in or approach to ministry. 

One of them asked me how I pictured my future ministry.

“Um,” I began. “Maybe I’ll wash my clothes at the river with other women . . . and we’ll talk about Jesus by the water?” A dense fog descended upon me as the divine orchestration of the past few months was enveloped in uncertainty.

We launched to India that fall, newlyweds with backpacks disproportionately stuffed with books, to an area with no other foreigners. We were pregnant by Christmas. 

For the next seven years, I tried hard to be a good mom while wondering what a good mom looks like. I tried to engage in ministry while wondering what faithful ministry looks like. I learned to wash my laundry like locals, alone in the bathroom with a bucket and a bar of soap, and I challenged myself to put aside what I wanted, for my kids and for the mission.

I felt my way along in life with the nagging feeling I was not doing anything quite right. I felt very much like the awkward labrador retriever who has grown too fast to know where her legs go.

After India, we moved to Africa and had the privilege of serving alongside other workers. I finally got to see how other women parent and do ministry and take care of their families and themselves. 

One friend loves to paint. So she teaches painting classes, helped organize a community mural, and created some thought-provoking artwork to help her and others tell the gospel story. Another is gifted in conversation. She is socially savvy and loves to walk around meeting people and seeing if she can turn a conversation to spiritual topics.

There are women who are super organized and women who are free-spirited. There are bold, business-minded women and shy, hospitable ones. There are doctors and high school graduates and everyone in between. Each woman has a way to meet and minister to their community. 

Shortly after meeting and getting to know all these incredible people, we went on a furlough and saw what the Bride of Christ is doing in our home country.

A small church started a free food truck ministry for the homeless. Another created a beautiful park on their church property where families can picnic. We saw stop-smoking classes, depression recovery seminars, MOPS groups, car shows, and a whole host of other creative ways to reach and bless communities.

Then I started reading to my kids about mission heroes like Mary Slessor and Gladys Aylward. These experiences began to gel in my mind. And suddenly I wanted to beam myself back to younger me and have a good heart-to-heart. But since I can’t do that, I’ll share my thoughts with you here:

Listen, girlfriend, nobody else knows what they’re doing, either. So don’t get discouraged thinking that the fog is your own personal Winnie-the-Pooh cloud, following you around to keep you confused and ineffective. As philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

You’ve got gifts, interests, passions. Try something. Try anything. Give yourself permission to fall flat on your face and eat a mouthful of desert sand. Wait on God, yes, but don’t wait too much on yourself. Some of us just never feel ready.

So toss your kid in the baby backpack and get out into your community. Learn things. Invite people over. You know that great idea you have, the one that really scares you? Do that! 

Here is what you need to know: You are still growing up. You will always be growing up. So don’t feel dumb when you don’t know what to do. You will always need wisdom like you need water, a fresh supply every day, every hour.

The only way to find your niche in ministry is to pay attention to the needs around you, say a prayer, try something, and honestly evaluate how it went. Do that over and over. And when you look back on your life, your motherhood, your ministry, it will finally make sense. It will look like the divinely orchestrated series of events that it really was. A life lived on purpose, with a niche only you could fill. 

A cinematic masterpiece. 

Dear TCK College Student: Take Care of Your Nervous System

by Aylin Merck

Dear College-Bound TCK, 

Twenty-four years ago, I was right where you are now. I landed in Ohio for the first time as a cross cultural kid (CCK). While I was born in the Dominican Republic, my father is full-blooded Palestinian, and that deeply shaped my family’s culture, values, and sense of identity as well as my own. I had meaningfully interacted with both Dominican and Arab cultures all of my life. Coming to the States as an international student in those formative years changed my sense of identity even more. 

That move to Ohio would become the first of many cross-cultural moves. Since then, I have moved back and forth from the States and the DR several times and lived in a couple of countries in the Middle East. In many ways, I am an adult TCK and am now also the delighted and grateful mother of three TCKs. 

You may be tired of hearing about the TCK/MK identity. You may know that you are so much more than a TCK. You may be deeply rooted in the sense that you are ultimately and foundationally made in the image of God and that is what matters most about you. 

I want to honor that. I am aware that you have a distinct story, which may include some aspects of the TCK experience and not others. There are opportunities and challenges that will be very similar for everyone starting alongside you as a freshman. At the same time, there are opportunities and challenges that may be unique to you as you transition to life in the States. I want to offer tools to help you flourish in this season as a human remade in the image of Christ. 

Something that has become precious to me in all my comings and goings is that as we cross the transition bridge and begin a new normal, we don’t leave belonging behind. Belonging is a new creation birthright that we carry with us even as it is also a gift we offer to others. It is because belonging is a gift we have been given that it also becomes something we steward. 

To be able to belong, then, we need to begin by stewarding who we are and how we face life. I want to share with you some things I have learned about belonging as stewardship and about the opportunities that come with each transition. 

Steward Who You Are

While we don’t ultimately belong to ourselves but to our Father who made us and to Christ who gave His life to free us from brokenness and from the stranglehold of our enemy, we do have a sense of ownership, agency, and autonomy that God has given us to steward. God calls us by name, gives us specific gifts, skills, and a particular story. When He redeems us, and when we live by faith through Christ, we also somehow become more fully ourselves when we own who we are and use our agency to use the gifts and skills we have been given. 

The opportunity with this new transition is that you get to know yourself better and get to live from the heart that Jesus gave you. You can choose what you value and live in light of that. 

There is a lot that has been chosen for you throughout your life — places to live, teams to be a part of, friends that become like family. But now you are here, and you probably get to have more agency than any other time in your life. 

Over the next few years, practice compassion and curiosity about the things that you are drawn to and the ones you are not. As you get to know others and their cultures, some things will change about you. You will become swirly. Some values will change. Some expressions of what you value will change. 

TCKs (and ATCKs) tend to be chameleons. We develop skills of observation and adaptation because we need to learn to belong. In her book, Incredible Lives and the Courage to Live Them, Rachel Cason writes, 

A chameleon is more than a colour changer — it is also the supreme watcher. Eyes spinning in opposite directions, it has 360-degree vision. So do we, hyperaware as we are of all the various interest groups surrounding us. We spin, scoping out the opinions, the demands, the competing expectations of both individuals and groups, trying to find one we can home in on: one set of expectations we can camouflage to, adapt to, belong to. We spin, seeking acceptance. . . . After all, successful adaptation is successful living — surely?

But, is it? Yes, our adaptations are skillful. They keep us able to move between different worlds But often behind our spinning eyes there is fear. That kind of adaptation doesn’t necessarily take into account that chameleons also have legs and can move to the environments they best thrive in. As adults now, you have a sense of agency you didn’t have when you were a kid. And even when you make mistakes, you have the opportunity to practice discernment and wisdom and make choices that honor not only the Lord, but also your own integrity. 

I have a friend who moved from the Middle East to the Midwest a few years ago to go to college. I told her I was thinking about this article and asked her what things she had learned that would be helpful to keep in mind to share with you. She said something to the effect of, 

I think that you have to learn to accept that you are living in a transitionary period. You have to be mindful when you jump head on to things like how we TCKs do. Often TCKs jump into the deep end of things, and it’s okay to let go of things if you realize they are not helping you. TCKs often have transition thrust on us (people leaving/moving) but sometimes we have to be okay realizing something isn’t for us and being OK with bringing that change on ourselves. Sometimes we jump into things and they end up being unhealthy, and it’s okay to move on and not have certain people in your life. The idea of leaving someone/something else can be very jarring, and you feel like you need to stay committed to place/situations/people to belong, but integrity is key.

She went on to say, 

I just had to realize that I would rather have no friends than have friends who treated me like that, and as soon as I did, I was able to make those good friends because I finally had the space and energy to.

Steward Your Responses to Life’s Challenges and Opportunities

A year after we first moved overseas, our family went to Colorado for a cross-cultural training. One of the exercises was called, “What are your true colors?” We went through a drill, practicing who we are under stress. In a very claustrophobic space, I ended up having a panic attack, and felt so much shame for years after that. I felt like my true colors had been revealed – my narrative was “I have a weak faith.” 

But since then, I have learned so much about the way God wired our brains and nervous systems. So much about our response under stress has to do with the circumstances that have shaped our nervous system and what our brain interprets as a threat. 

When we go through transition and change, our body’s response to stress is not immediately evidence of where our spiritual strength is. It has a lot more to do with our nervous system’s capacity. So as you go through the next few months, get curious and compassionate about your responses. 

Do you find yourself in situations

  • Feeling suddenly antsy?
  • Racing/abnormally beating heart?
  • Sweating?
  • Dissociating (like you’re outside of your body)?
  • Feeling emotionally numb or shut down?
  • Seeing stars/feeling like you’re going to pass out?
  • Feeling sick to your stomach?
  • Uncontrollable emotional responses such as rage or intense sobbing? 
  • Any thoughts of self-harm or suicide?
  • Feelings of panic?

If you experience these, it means that something is more than your brain and nervous system can handle at the moment. This doesn’t mean that you have a weak faith, that you’re not cut out for this, or that there is something wrong with you. It just means that your nervous system needs care, and it needs to know you are paying attention and that you will communicate safety to your body so it can regulate and your window of tolerance has shrunk. 

The window of tolerance is that space where we can think clearly and feel our feelings at the same time. Within our window of tolerance we are consciously living from our Spirit-led self. So, when your body is sending you the signals I mentioned earlier, we want to regulate our nervous system, so we can be in that space of both thinking clearly and feeling our feelings. It is that space where we are human-sized. 

Here are some things you can do regulate your nervous system and help increase your window of tolerance: 

  • Take a break
  • Drink water
  • Go for a walk 
  • Take a shower (preferably a cold one)
  • Wrap yourself tightly in a blanket
  • Go outside barefoot
  • Do some tapping
  • Breathe in for 5 seconds and out for 8 seconds
  • Drink chamomile/lavender tea
  • Call a good and safe friend

Maybe you are surprised by the turn that this article has taken. You may not be used to thinking about belonging as something that has anything to do with self-leadership and stewardship. And while belonging is more than this, it starts here. It starts with you knowing and owning who the Lord has made you, living with integrity in light of that, and learning how to steward your body and the impact of the life God has called you, so that you can live with the values that make you you. 

I hope this college transition is filled with tangible expressions of the presence of God offering you His deep belonging. Resting in His love, may you experience deep safety and a joyful sense of knowing who you are.

With you on this journey,
Aylin

~~~~~~~

Aylin Merck is a soulful and contemplative human who lets those traits color everything she does as a wife, mama, writer, coach, and soul care and trauma care provider. A Dominican-Palestinian, Aylin holds a rich cross-cultural perspective, having not only immigrated to the US but also lived in the Middle East with her husband and family for almost ten years. Expat life in many ways fits her like a glove. She thrives in collaboration and mutual partnerships, in companioning others in their healing journeys and in experiencing friendship with the Triune God through Jesus Christ. Her soul grows three sizes whenever she gets to read by a lake, savor laughter and heart-to-heart conversations with kindred friends, and listen to rain with a Highlander Grogg latte at hand. You can find Aylin on Substack.