Expat Family – Page 2 – A Life Overseas |

The Power of Art Processing for TCKs

by Megan C. Norton-Newbanks

I grew up attending international schools: one in South Africa, one in South Korea, two in Germany, one in Japan, and one in Israel. As a U.S. Foreign Service family, we moved to another country every two to three years, and one school elective I always looked forward to was art class.

Art classes were a safe space for me, and I loved learning about all the techniques and textures I could discover with different mediums. In my final year of high school, I took AP Art, and my capstone theme was “the journey we take.” I explored this theme through the lens of growing up as a Third Culture Kid. I crafted molds of shoes from clay and self-portraits from torn magazine tones. I used recycled materials to showcase movement and change. Most of these creations remain in my parents’ house and remind me of how I’ve continued to create in different ways.

What I have found in working with TCKs across the world is that we gravitate to art to articulate our stories. Various art forms, from visual renderings to photography to poetry, often capture our stories in ways that essays or books cannot fully capture because we are more focused on the process rather than the outcome. Through drawing, painting, and other forms of making, internal experiences become visible and tangible, offering a way to process change and better understand one’s story.

Some of my favorite processing with TCKs is done through inquiry-based art. Instead of asking them to verbalize or write out the cultural influences that have shaped their identity, I provide a blank piece of paper or other art medium where they can express their “many selves.” It can be helpful to provide simple prompts such as, “What might belonging look like as a place?” or “How does home feel?”

In my own experience, engaging with art has provided a way to revisit moments of transition and identity that I did not fully understand at the time. There were feelings I could not name as a child, such as grief over leaving, confusion about belonging, and the tension of holding multiple cultural worlds, and yet when I began to create, those experiences found expression. Understanding often came through the process, not before it. It became less about creating something to show and more about creating in order to discover.

Sometimes there can be resistance to engaging with art processing. I often hear, “I can’t even draw a stick figure” or “I’m not an artist.” But art expression and processing is more about curiosity than skill. There is no need to share or explain the outcome unless you want to. At the same time, sometimes it can be helpful to reflect afterward with a few gentle questions such as: What stands out to me? What surprised me? What might this be saying about my experience?

There is something universal about art that transcends culture while still honoring individual expression. Jemina Watstein, an art educator, explains in The Belonging Project podcast episode, “How Creative Kids Navigate Life Between Cultures,” that children across the world move through similar stages of artistic development, yet their environments shape how they create and what they express. For globally mobile individuals, this often results in a rich blend of influences that reflect their unique journeys. Activities like blending patterns, symbols, or artistic styles from different cultures can help make this diversity visible.

Within families, art processing can encourage meaningful connection. Simple creative practices, such as collaboratively creating a shared artwork that reflects each person’s experience, can help children process transitions, build emotional awareness, and maintain a sense of belonging even in the midst of change. In these spaces, art becomes more than expression. It becomes a bridge between stories, identities, and relationships.

When I met the very talented artist Simona Wiig, a fellow TCK, we connected over our creative practices. She has done research and held art exhibitions on the interrelationships between belonging, identity, and a multicultural upbringing. Together, we have offered workshops to TCKs to express their stories through various art mediums. We love hearing about how multimedia art inspires TCKs to share their feelings of home and belonging.

Last year, Simona and I released the book A Work of Heart, a collection of over seventy artistic expressions from Third Culture Kids, Cross Cultural Kids, and global nomads. Each piece is paired with personal reflection, forming a powerful mosaic of identities and memories.

Several families report using this book as a debriefing tool with TCKs and family members by inviting thoughtful reflection in considering questions like:

Which art piece resonates with my own story?
What memories or personal experiences do these art pieces bring to mind?
In what ways might this content be inviting me to view my story differently?

The book ultimately serves as an invitation to think about your story differently: through art. You do not need to be an artist to begin. A simple sketchbook, a favorite pen, or a small creative practice can become a steady companion wherever you are in the world. In the act of making, you find space to process, to connect, and to belong.

Simona and I are already seeking contributions to Volume 2. Please consider submitting your piece here.

~~~~~~~

Megan C. Norton-Newbanks, MA, MS, is an author, CCK/TCK consultant, intercultural trainer, podcaster, and writer. Megan grew up in six countries and has since lived in four more as an ATCK, in addition to six U.S. states. Her book, Belonging Beyond Borders: How Adult Third Culture Kids Can Cultivate a Sense of Belonging, equips and empowers readers to recognize their cultural competencies and apply them in various contexts. Megan also spearheaded the books Letters Now Sent: A Collection of Letters from the Globally Mobile and A Work of Heart: A Collection of Artwork from Multicultural Individuals. In 2022, she launched Beyond Borders Publishing, a platform committed to amplifying cross-cultural voices and stories.

Is This the End? (When the Mission Becomes Dangerous)

Written by an anonymous worker

“The rebels burned a plane.”

I looked up at my husband, a sense of dread growing in my chest. “Who was it?”

Over the next few hours, we learned the devastating details. American pilot Nick Gosselin had been ambushed by rebels shortly after landing on a village airstrip. He was executed, and his plane set on fire. My Instagram feed filled with images of the burned aircraft and blurred photographs of his body.

“That could have been you,” I whispered to my husband.

This is not the first time a civilian aircraft piloted by an expatriate has been targeted by rebels here in Papua. In 2023, New Zealander Philip Mehrtens was kidnapped and held captive by a rebel faction for nineteen months before being released through lengthy negotiations involving Indonesia, local leaders, and the New Zealand government.

Then, in 2024, New Zealand helicopter pilot Glen Conning was shot and killed shortly after landing. Following Conning’s death, the Associated Press reported, “No one has claimed responsibility for that attack, and the rebels and Indonesian authorities have blamed each other.”

Still, Nick’s death feels different.

As a pilot for the Catholic aviation mission AMA, Nick flew humanitarian flights to isolated communities. Rebels have attempted to justify the attack by accusing mission aircraft of supporting military and police operations — an accusation that is categorically false. Rebel spokesman Sebby Sambom later released a video calling for the murder of all foreign civilian pilots, the burning of their aircraft, and the murder and expulsion of missionaries from Papua, dismissing them as “useless.”

Pilots are not the primary targets either. In recent years, schools have been burned, teachers killed, medical personnel murdered, and construction workers attacked. But none of this is really new, is it?

Around the world, missionaries and humanitarian workers knowingly place themselves in harm’s way to serve others. While there is no comprehensive annual count of missionaries killed worldwide, the Aid Worker Security Database recorded a staggering 383 humanitarian worker deaths in global hotspots during 2024 — the highest number on record. Most of those killed were local aid workers.

Before leaving for the field, we understood that serving in Papua would involve risk. As a missionary pilot, my husband would fly through some of the world’s most challenging mountain terrain, navigating rapidly changing weather and difficult landing spots. We would face diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, dengue fever, malaria, and typhoid. We knew robbery or assault was possible. We came to Papua knowing that choosing to serve here meant walking hand in hand with heartache.

Over the years, we’ve had our share of challenges. The flying environment has given us a few scares. Our family has battled serious illnesses. We’ve lived through riots, evacuations, and tribal conflict. And yet, despite it all, we would say our lives have been made immeasurably richer because of this place. Papua has become home. Our children — from our teenager down to our toddler — love life here.

Now, it all feels like borrowed time. I find myself praying, Lord, what are You doing? Is this the end?

I carry a tremendous sadness — not only for our own family and the life we’ve built in these mountains, but especially for the people living in isolated villages who depend on mission aviation.

What will the mother suffering complications in childbirth do when reaching the nearest medical facility is several days of hiking away? Who will respond when a village is devastated by a landslide? What happens to communities cut off by mountains and jungle when no aircraft are willing or able to come? And if we are forced to leave, how will our family grieve losing our home?

I don’t know what comes next. Can we stay? Must we go? Nick’s death has forced us to revisit questions every missionary must ask themselves. What risks are ours to accept? Which are not? And what abilities do we have to wisely mitigate the dangers where we can?

I think of the apostle Paul. When the Jews in Damascus plotted to kill him, fellow believers lowered him through an opening in the city wall under the cover of darkness so he could escape (Acts 9). Later, on his journey to Jerusalem, the prophet Agabus warned Paul that he would be captured and handed over to the Gentiles. His friends pleaded with him not to go, yet Paul remained convinced that obedience required him to continue (Acts 21).

At first glance, those two stories seem to point in opposite directions. In one, Paul escapes because God provides a way out. In the other, he walks knowingly toward suffering because he is convinced that obedience requires it. Yet neither story is ultimately about avoiding or embracing danger. Both are stories of faithful discernment.

That is where we find ourselves today. We are praying. We are listening. We are engaging with community. We are weighing our responsibility to our family, the people we serve, and the calling God has entrusted to us. We are grateful to serve with an organization that views security planning and thoughtful risk management not as a lack of faith but as faithful stewardship.

I don’t know whether we will remain in Papua or whether this chapter of our lives is drawing to a close. I don’t know whether the risks will increase or diminish in the days ahead. But I do know this: God holds tomorrow, and we can trust Him.

So we pray — for Nick Gosselin’s family as they grieve, for the people of Papua who continue to bear the greatest burden of this conflict, and for the missionaries, pilots, teachers, healthcare workers, and local believers who continue serving in places of extraordinary need. We also pray for the wisdom to surrender our plans continually to God, holding neither our comfort nor our calling more tightly than our obedience to Christ.

* * *

Editor’s Note: If you are in currently in a season of risk, danger, or fear, here are some additional resources for discernment and support on our site. ~Elizabeth Trotter

Risk and the Cross-cultural Worker (an interview with Anna Hampton about her first book, Facing Danger)

Can Faith and Fear Exist at the Same Time? (an interview with Anna Hampton about her second book, Facing Fear)

Confronting Risk and Managing Fear in the Uncertainty of War (resources from Anna Hampton)

What My Cross-cultural Marriage Taught Me About Christianity

by Rachel Espazien

This month I’m celebrating six years of marriage to my Haitian husband. When people ask me about cross-cultural marriage, they expect stories of language differences, cultural conflict, or family traditions. Of course those have been part of our story, but the main lesson that comes to mind as I contemplate how my cross-cultural marriage has changed me over the course of the past six years is something different.

My husband didn’t introduce me to Haitian culture. I was already living in Haiti and learning the language before we got together. However, ask any cross-cultural couple, and they will tell you. The depth of your cultural immersion while living abroad, compared to doing life 24/7 with your foreign spouse, are two completely different experiences!

Through our marriage, God showed me that much of what I considered “Christianity” was actually American culture.

Growing up in America, I never realized how difficult it can be to separate my faith from culture. The two were so intertwined that I genuinely thought they were the same thing. Certain ways of speaking, dressing, worshiping, doing ministry, raising children, being productive, giving, and even managing time felt not only normal but morally correct.

Then I married someone who loved Jesus as I did but approached many of those things differently. When these differences would arise, I instinctively viewed them through the lens of right and wrong.

“Why would he, as a Christian, do things that way?” “Why can’t he see that ‘this’ is the right way?” “Surely my approach is more biblical.” But over time, God began exposing the truth to me that many of the things I was defending were not biblical principles at all. They were cultural preferences.

I discovered that serving God can look different from person to person and culture to culture. This doesn’t mean that one is more right than the other. The more I learned about Haiti and the more I experienced life through my husband’s perspective, the more I realized that Christianity is far bigger than any one culture.

Jesus did not come to make Haitians into Americans. He did not come to make Americans into Haitians. He came to redeem people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

Throughout church history, Christians have, at times, confused the gospel with culture. Beginning in the New Testament, Jewish believers sometimes struggled to understand that Gentiles did not need to become culturally Jewish in order to follow Christ. We see these same beliefs affecting cross-cultural work and marriages today.

The gospel was not tied to a single culture then, and it is not tied to one now. That realization transformed not only my marriage but also my ministry.

Because of our work in Haiti, I regularly interact with people whose daily lives look very different from my own. Years ago, I unconsciously measured their practices against American standards. I assumed that what felt normal to me was somehow more godly.

Today, I try to ask a different question in my marriage. Instead of asking, “Why doesn’t he do things the way I do?” I ask, “Is this actually unbiblical, or is it simply different?” And “What would be the most loving thing? To adapt? Or to call him out on this?”

That question has saved me from many unnecessary judgments. It has also helped me appreciate the beauty of God’s global church. Around the world, believers worship differently, communicate differently, and live differently. Yet they serve the same Savior and are filled with the same Spirit.

My marriage has given me a front-row seat to that reality. Living with someone from another culture has forced me to examine assumptions I didn’t even know I had. It has challenged my pride, stretched my understanding, and reminded me that my culture is not the standard by which all others should be measured.

Most importantly, it has deepened my understanding of the kingdom of God. The kingdom is not American. The kingdom is not Haitian. The kingdom is God’s, and it is beautifully diverse.

One day believers from every nation will stand together before the throne of Christ. Our cultural differences will not disappear, but they will all find their proper place under the lordship of Jesus. Just as diversity makes our worship beautiful, diversity makes marriage beautiful too.

In a small way, cross-cultural marriage offers a glimpse of that future reality. It is two people from different backgrounds learning to build unity without demanding uniformity. For that lesson, I am deeply grateful.

What began as marriage between an American woman and a Haitian man became one of God’s tools for teaching me a larger truth: Following Christ does not require making others look like me. It requires helping people look more like Him.

Cross-cultural marriage is refining, it’s stretching, and it’s so, so beautiful. How blessed I am to be living this life between two cultures and raising a daughter who is the best of both of our cultures. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

~~~~~~~

Rachel Espazien is a missionary, blogger, and the founder of Espwa Demen Mission. Married to her Haitian husband, she writes from firsthand experience about the joys and challenges of intercultural marriage, cross-cultural ministry, and everyday life. Rachel is passionate about encouraging missionaries to learn their target language, embrace cultural differences with grace, and faithfully follow Christ wherever He leads. When she is not serving in Haiti, you will find her at home in Missouri raising her two-year-old daughter, selling at her antique booth, and language tutoring. She enjoys coffee, cooking, and fitness. You can follow her blog at espwademen.com/blog.

From Fluent to Clueless in One Simple Plane Trip

by Patricia Paulichen

You really don’t realize how much of life you take for granted until you move overseas. You wake up on the other side of the planet, and suddenly nothing makes sense. Your brain has turned into mush, and you function and sound like a two-year-old.

And yet most people back home — who sent you there as a seemingly capable adult — have no idea of your sudden, invisible regression back to infancy.

The Toddler Phase: Relearning the Basics

So, you think you know how things work? Psych! Think again.

Previously effortless things like grocery shopping now demand Columbo-style detective work. Baking soda? Only in pharmacies, of course. Molasses? Available in greenhouses as fertilizer, obviously. (Both true stories.) Even seemingly simple things can go hilariously wrong. Imagine rushing in to use the loo only to realize (too late) that washrooms here double as election voting booths. Who knew?

Each day presents an escape room-style puzzle that you feel (and are) unequipped to solve. Learning how to complete even basic tasks feels like a full-time job, and the exhaustion of the constant decoding exhausts you; you wonder if competence will ever return.

The Language Barrier: When Your Brain Betrays You

Whether you acknowledge it or not, communication equals independence, and in the early days, you have neither.

Remember a time when you were articulate? Now you’re living in your very own episode of The Twilight Zone where you can only grunt like a caveman. Conversations become heavily gestured, frequently awkward, and often regrettable. You know what you want to say, but the words won’t come to your mouth. You want to yell, “But I have a college degree!” — anything to prove you’re even remotely intelligent. But fear of embarrassment keeps you smiling and silently nodding along, praying you can get through the conversation without losing it.

The mistakes pile up quickly. I know of one missionary who confidently asked a Sunday school child to “spit on” him instead of “forgive” him. The kid wisely refused. Another turned down help refining his sermon, only to open his Sunday morning message by declaring his “backside” had two halves instead of his past. The congregation dissolved in unstoppable laughter, and he had to leave the pulpit abruptly. (Though I’m sure he never made that mistake again!)

While it doesn’t take forever (even though it often feels like it), slowly but surely your brain and mouth catch up to your surroundings. Like a Biblical miracle, your tongue is eventually loosed and the words begin to flow.

The Cultural Differences: Rules Lurking Under the Surface

Every culture has unspoken rules, and the sooner you learn them, the fewer awkward situations you’ll find yourself in.

Greeting customs? Good luck guessing whether to shake hands, bow, kiss a cheek (or two), or awkwardly hover. And why does a latecomer to church have to greet absolutely everyone when they enter, even if it’s in the middle of a service? Public transport? Do you flag it down or just stand there awkwardly and trust that it stops? Is it even alright for “rich” foreigners to use it? (Learned that lesson the hard way.)

Beyond the daily logistics, cultural norms shape deeper aspects of life. Humour doesn’t always translate, and what’s polite in one place might be offensive in another. Hand gestures you’re used to using at home might put you in a more-than-awkward situation in your host country.

What’s considered a casual request in your circles might come across as demanding or demeaning in another. Even time itself can be twisted to the extent that appointments are suggestions (especially for the doctors you’re waiting to see), and events “starting at 6 p.m.” includes the time to get ready. (Who knew arrival times could be so fluid?)

The most frustrating part? No one tells you these things outright. Each day you learn from your mistakes, albeit sometimes rather painfully.

The Bureaucracy Maze: When Systems Feel Designed to Drive You Mad

Back home, things were predictable. Need to renew your driver’s license? You know exactly where to go and how long it will take. Need to pay a bill? Log into online banking, do a quick transfer, and it’s done, easy peasy. But when you move overseas, every system operates by a set of disconnected, unwritten, often baffling rules.

Each day feels like stumbling through a dimly-lit labyrinth full of bad LED lights and endless red tape where, after hours of standing in an unmoving lineup, a disinterested clerk tells you you’re missing one vital document that same person failed to mention to you when you were there yesterday, before waving you off to wait in line at another indifferent office, only for them to hand you a contradictory new mountain of paperwork and tell you to start over, leaving you wondering if anyone in this soul-crushing machine actually knows the rules or if it’s designed to wear you down until you question your own sanity.

Official tasks feel like being on a reality-TV show of trial and error, where every attempt uncovers a fresh complication that determines your survival (at worst) and makes you want to scream (at best).

As one missionary friend wisely shared, “If I can get one thing done per day, I’m doing really well. Anything more than that is unrealistic.” In this hamster wheel-type life, each stamp or signature is celebrated as a victory, proof you made it through some sort of bureaucracy without completely losing your mind.

The Hidden Cost: When Adventure Becomes Exhaustion

Reality check: It’s not all an adventure. This is simply how you live, day in and day out. The constant small frictions and low-grade disorientation are exhausting and take a real toll.

You miss the simplicity of home in ways you never anticipated: the ease of shopping and ready-made food, the predictability of schedules, and the comfort of blending in. Relationships are hard, and making genuine friends as an adult demands real effort.

No matter how long you stay or how well you adapt, you’ll always carry at least a subtle difference to the nationals. As my immigrant father-in-law said, “Once you move away from your birth country, no matter where you live, you will never fully fit in again.” Welcome to Third Culture Life, where belonging is layered with complexity and forever a little bittersweet.

The Redemption: Why We Stay (and How We Grow)

In the beginning, every day feels like a losing battle. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, you start to change. One day, you realize your brain no longer feels fried by 2 p.m. (Score!) Survival mode gives way to flow. Life starts to feel easier. You can finally exhale a little. You’re adjusting.

Living overseas in a new language and culture strips you down to nothing and rebuilds you with a new personality and a new way of thinking. In the grinding process, you cultivate real grit, adaptability, and the capacity to laugh at yourself. Over time, you come to love the new person you’ve become and to appreciate the challenges God used to get you there.

And somewhere in the journey, the foreign place that once overwhelmed you becomes home. You emerge from the cocoon of uncertainty as the beautiful, bicultural butterfly you have been called to be: more humble, more reliant on His grace, and forever transformed.

~~~~~~~

Patricia Paulichen is a Bible-centred life coach who is passionate about helping women in ministry and missions rediscover clarity, peace, and joy in Christ amid the demands of cross-cultural life. With years of overseas ministry and her own family’s neurodiversity journey, she brings practical wisdom and deep compassion to every conversation. Patricia and her husband currently serve in Uruguay, South America. They are parents to two homeschooled adult TCKs and two TCK kids-in-law, all living in Europe. When she’s not ministering or coaching, you’ll likely find her with a good book and a cup of tea, delving into languages, geeking out over neuroscience and faith, wandering in nature, or happily lost in a K-drama. You can connect with Patricia at patriciamyralee.com.

Learning to Stay (a TCK story)

by Sangita Shresthova

I never thought I’d be the kind of person who put down roots. Having grown up between Nepali and Czech cultures, I have always thrived on change — the desire to leave, to be open to new possibilities, and discover something new. For decades, I was always on the move. Colombo, Ahmedabad, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, Boston, Prague, Kathmandu. I didn’t just adapt to transience; I sought it out. Home was wherever my suitcase landed. Rootlessness felt like freedom.

Then, somehow, I settled.

It didn’t happen overnight; it crept up on me. I fell in love. I had a son. I grew to care about my son’s school, the community around the church children’s choir he joined, the trails our family hiked together, the coffee shop that always got my order right, the streets I biked, the neighbors that waved.

Slowly, quietly, place began to matter. One day, I realized that I had somehow unpacked my suitcase in Altadena, California. Don’t get me wrong, I still sometimes imagined leaving, but for the first time, these desires didn’t rise to the deafening levels that had pushed me to move on before.

And then, on January 7, 2025, everything changed when Altadena (our Altadena) was destroyed by the Eaton Fire. Overnight, sixty percent of our town burned down, and the places I’d come to love disappeared. The coffee shop, the park, the trails, my son’s school and church. Though our home (thankfully) survived, we were not able to return for months, and when we did everything was different. I was overwhelmed and surprised by the depth of my grief. I had lost places before by leaving them, but this was different: the place itself had disappeared.

Through the pain, I felt my old instincts return. I was prepared for this moment, I told myself. My cross-cultural upbringing had taught me to adapt and move on. I know how to start over. I know that rootlessness can be a strength. And so, my first impulse was to do what I had always known how to do: leave and start again somewhere else.

But then, I also remembered what I had learned about the power of connecting (really connecting) to a place and committing to being shaped by geographies as much as cultures. I also thought about my now eleven-year-old son and his emerging Czech, Nepali, Indian, and American cross-cultural identity. I thought about how much his church choir community meant to him.

I realized that I wanted him to know that staying in a place is just as meaningful as having the courage to leave it. I wanted him to understand that resilience can take many shapes and that his cross-cultural upbringing does not mean that rootlessness is his destiny.

So, despite a strong urge to pack those suitcases, my family and I decided to stay (for now) and become part of Altadena’s long journey to rebuild. I committed to being part of the local community, to holding space for what Altadena may become. I make it a point to visit the restaurants and coffee shops that remain. My son composed a song about Altadena to perform at local events and wears his Altadena tee shirt with hope.

I have adapted and embraced change, while staying in place to grieve for what we have lost, knowing it will never be the same. Through it all, I have learned that living across cultures can teach us how to adapt, move on, and let go. But it can also teach us something I am still learning: how to stay.

~~~~~~~~

A Czech-Nepali mother, writer, former dancer, and current professor at the University of Southern California, Sangita Shresthova currently lives in Altadena, California. She recently published The Cross-Cultural Parenting Handbook, to share what she learned about parenting across cultures through her conversations with more than thirty cross-cultural parents and caregivers.

Introducing an Interactive Tool for Expat Parents Based on the Book Nourished: Third Culture Kids and the Village They Need

Some seasons are harder than others. Now there’s a tool to help you see why.

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You look back on a particular year and think, “I don’t get why that was hard.” Nothing terrible happened, no family crisis, no personal trauma. Yet your child, or younger you, struggled. Something felt lonely. The support just wasn’t there, and you still can’t figure out why.

–

One of the central insights in my new book, Nourished: Third Culture Kids and the Village They Need, is that children need specific support structures to build resilience – and for globally mobile families, those structures get disrupted over and over again. Transitions simply do that. When those supports go missing, it leaves a mark that feels hard to pinpoint.

–

The Nourished Companion Simulator lets you see all of that, and it’s free.

You can build your own childhood story map by plotting which crucial support structures were in place and where they were missing. You can also build your child’s map alongside it. Suddenly, the harder seasons take a visual form, making sense in a new way. So do the wonderful seasons.

The simulator also includes a library of safe space responses based on the framework by TCK Training. These are phrases that turn hard conversations, even conflict, into connection points rather than walls. They build secure attachment right when things would normally go sideways. Then when a new move or season comes, you can download your story map, reset it, and start again.

Families of faith will also find an interactive Biblical study guide.

This simulator was built by Jason Weimer as a companion to the book, but you don’t have to read the book first. Just start building your map and see what patterns begin to emerge.

Try the Nourished Companion Simulator here — it’s free.

Twenty-one Hermit Crabs and a Fridge Full of Butter: Finding Levity in Life Abroad

My son was very excited to find a hermit crab walking on the street in front of our house. A grandma had been selling hermit crabs to students at the school we run. Children bought the creatures for the small price of 2,000 IDR (15 cents). For days, kids were coming to school with hermit crabs in their pockets.

This particular one that my son found must have managed to escape. He convinced me to let him keep it, and we set up a little habitat for it in a plastic container. Since all must be fair in a household of two brothers, we quickly purchased one more hermit crab so that my boys each had one.

But then we went away for the weekend and somehow the little hermit crabs both died. (I think the water dish was perhaps too difficult for them to reach. Oops.) I kept my eyes open for the grandma to return so I could buy replacement hermit crabs, but she did not come. I ended up mentioning it nonchalantly to the mom of the family, requesting to buy five more hermit crabs if the grandma still had some.

Imagine my surprise the next day when a group of kids brought me a dish filled with twenty-one hermit crabs. My boys were thrilled when they came home from school. We quickly bought a little aquarium and set up a habitat that would (hopefully) keep them alive for a long time.

This is a silly, yet tangible reminder of how our neighbors care for us — sometimes in extravagant ways.

Recently I visited a friend who was finishing her six-month tuberculosis treatment. I noticed at least a dozen large cardboard boxes in the corner of her house. Pizza boxes? I wondered.

Midway through our conversation, she stood up and grabbed a box. She set it in front of me, opening it. “Kak, do you like this?” she asked me. Imagine my surprise when the box held not pizza, but dozens of individual butter packets imported from France. A nearby hotel likes to donate food to part of the slum community we live in, and these boxes of butter had come in a recent donation.

“The truck brought a hundred boxes!” my friend told me, laughing. “People don’t know what to do with it. It does not have a flavor.” To demonstrate, she opened one butter packet and stuck her finger in it, bringing it to her mouth to show how it lacked any flavor.

I assured her that I loved butter and would happily take it off her hands if she was not going to use it. That is how our fridge’s bottom drawer got filled with hundreds of little butter packets. Perhaps some of you reading this can appreciate the luxury that is real butter, something that I had gone years without buying since it is expensive here and not part of a normal Indonesian diet.

Another example of our neighbors’ generosity and God’s sense of humor — providing me with comfort-food in the middle of a slum community. Coincidentally (or not), the next day a different neighbor gave me two kilos of whole wheat flour that someone had given her, another luxury that we rarely ever get. I was now able to make whole wheat bread to eat with real butter!

Life overseas can be full of hard things, and I often write about the challenges we face in a slum community (tuberculosis, possible eviction, the hard reality of life for our students, etc.). There are also heartbreaking things going on in my family’s life at the moment.

In the midst of difficult things, however, there are also beautiful ordinary reminders of God’s provision. Like hermit crabs and butter packets. So today I’m pausing to say Thank You. Thank you to the Lord for neighbors who care.

May you, too, be surprised this week with small gifts from neighbors and from the Lord.

Photo of hermit crab by Ahmed Sobah on Unsplash
Photo of butter by author

Looking for a Place to Call Home

by Val Robb

As our plane descended into Auckland, I stared at the arrival card: “Answer this section if you live in New Zealand. Otherwise go to 2B.” I glanced further down the card to section 2B: “Answer this section if you DO NOT live in New Zealand.”

The form blurred as my eyes filled with tears. At the moment, I didn’t live anywhere. Our family was returning to New Zealand after over five years in Beijing, leaving a home and life we loved. Moving out of our apartment just days earlier already felt like a lifetime ago.

Leaving hurt. My husband had thrived in his job at the university. We enjoyed deep friendships with both locals and expats. Ministry opportunities had grown. We loved our international church. However, for education and health reasons, we felt God was closing this chapter of our lives.

As the plane landed, I felt rootless and displaced. Originally from Canada, I had embraced New Zealand as home in the past, but five years away made it feel foreign to both me and my Kiwi husband. Coming ‘home’ to no physical home also felt strange. My husband’s parents were kindly hosting us for a few days, and then we’d be house-sitting while looking for a place to live.

Having sold our house before moving to China, we now faced the reality of Auckland’s sky-rocketing house prices. We considered buying but soon deemed the market out of our reach. Friends warned us that rentals were hard to find, especially large homes like we needed for our six children. My stomach tightened when I heard that multiple people vied to rent each house and sometimes even bid each other up.

Before searching for a rental, we took a brief break at a rural holiday home called Emmanuel House. The name reminded me that God was with us. As we strolled the nearby beach, the salty air and rhythmic, rolling waves soothed my restless spirit.

The Creator brought to mind the verse He had impressed on my heart in Beijing: “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in You” (Psalm 31:19 ESV).

“Hey, Mom, here’s a gift for you.” My oldest daughter presented me with a bumpy purple and white shell. On it she had written, “Remember–if God so houses molluscs, will He not house you? Do not worry. Matthew 6.”

Smiling, I gazed at the shell. Its simple beauty encouraged me to trust the Shell Maker, and I thanked Him for His abundant goodness in the gift of a faith-filled daughter.

I reflected on God’s faithfulness to our family throughout our many international moves. Each one had involved enormous changes and emotional turmoil. Each confirmed that my “citizenship is in heaven” and that my true home is in the never-changing, ever-loving heart of God. Cupping the shell, I imagined the insignificant little mollusc safely housed inside amidst wild ocean breakers. Surely I could trust such a compassionate Creator with our family’s needs.

Back from our holiday, we scrolled online for five-bedroom houses for rent. Only three options came up. One looked dilapidated. The next exceeded our budget. After repeated failed attempts, we finally connected with the agent to see the last possibility. While waiting to view the house, we discovered several Asian supermarkets in the nearby shopping area. Chinese signs, the familiar sing-song sounds of Mandarin, and the aroma of Asian spices made us feel at home.

My heart filled with hope as we viewed the house. Despite a quirky lay-out and dated decor, it boasted an ocean view and convenient location. The kids were enthused about the spacious deck. We immediately filled out the forms. The next day, as we completed the paperwork to make this house our home, we heard another client had applied. We had signed just in time.

The transition still took time, and my emotions often lurched like a roller coaster, but we now had a place to call home. God’s kindness in details like the view from the kitchen window, nature walks nearby, and a heat pump for cold winter days moved me to tears.

After settling in, I put the treasured shell in a prominent spot on my dresser as a reminder of God’s faithfulness. Many years have gone by since then, including multiple moves. Still the shell reminds me of my kind and faithful Father whose heart is my ultimate home.

~~~~~~~

Val Robb met her Kiwi husband in Canada while completing an education degree. Their family moved to Auckland in 1994, the first of 13 international moves so far. Homeschooling six children while living in New Zealand, China, Canada, and America has provided plenty of material for her to write about! Val has taught workshops for parents and writing classes for children on three different continents as their family travelled for her husband’s university job. Now that she’s completed her 25-year homeschool journey, Val offers coaching and workshops to encourage homeschooling parents. She blogs at www.inspiringwriting.co where she loves helping parents strengthen relationships with their children while growing their kids’ writing skills. Val is the author of the upcoming book, Walking Together: Grace-filled Guidance for your Homeschool Journey.

TCKs and the Power of Presence

by Brandon Jones

I’m at a theatre in Brazil with my daughter, Monica, who is just a few months away from finishing high school here in Brazil and moving away to start college in the United States, a country that does not really feel like her home. But, then again, neither does Brazil. At least all the way.

Our afternoon movie was Rental Family, which features a man named Philip who is an American actor that has spent the last seven years in Japan. During that time he’s picked up enough Japanese to get by, booked some gigs, and settled into an apartment from where he can watch so many neighbors. But all the time he’s alone.

For my daughter and me, this movie was quite the experience as we are in our eighth year in Brazil, have picked up enough Portuguese to get by, have settled into an apartment from which we can watch so many neighbors, along with their dogs. But we’re also kind of alone.

In the movie Philip often has conversations that mix English and Japanese as he fits in quite often in spaces and places, but yet he also always stands out. The cross-cultural stuff, however, is in the background of the movie. What stood out more to me was the theme of presence and how as humans we were created to be in the presence of others and gift those others with our own presence. There’s power in our presence, and the business Philip begins to work for, the rent-a-family business, cashes in on this power for better or for worse.

In some ways Philip is perfect for the part. Of course, he’s American, so he’s asked to fit western roles. For seven years he has also been trying to figure out how to be present in another culture that he will never fully understand. But above and beyond every culture is the same, universal human nature that creates it. And above and beyond us humans is the God who created us for presence, no matter how many apartment buildings or norms exist to keep us compartmentalized and apart from one another.

As the movie goes on this theme of presence collides with the question of honesty. Is physical presence all that powerful when it’s based on an act or a lie? Yes and no. The movie does well in letting us see Philip’s journey, introducing us to fascinating characters, and at the end letting us sit with the ambivalence of how presence, honesty, and relationships all intertwine, whether that be in Japan or any other part of the world.

Sitting there with my daughter, I realized the movie wasn’t just telling a story about Japan or rented relationships, but was gently pressing on something deeper within me.

Rental Family is not a Christian movie, but its characters and themes reinforce the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. There is power in God’s presence with us. And that power would certainly be diminished were it based on some lie, were some of those ancient heresies true after all that Jesus wasn’t really God and really one of us, but some imposter merely playing a role—our Rental Savior.

As cross-cultural missionaries our whole family has dealt with feeling like imposters from time to time. Our passports say one country, and our Portuguese accents confirm it, but our hearts are torn. We may never truly feel what a Brazilian feels, but we’ve lived here long enough to talk like they talk and even think like they think às vezes (sometimes). And while this is true for my wife Marci and me, it’s even more true for Monica and her little sister Olivia, who have spent a majority of their developmental years in Brazil.

Monica is present in this humid, densely populated place, and its emotive people have shaped who she is. But she’ll never be Brazilian, even if her Portuguese accent is better than mine. Yet as she preps to “return” to the States, she doesn’t feel all that American either. Sure, she’ll look and sound the part, but the contours of her character have been permanently pressed by Brazil.

There’s a phrase for kids like Monica and Olivia: Third Culture Kids (TCKs). In a way they can “mostly belong“ in more than one culture, while not fully belonging in any of them. And so they are really their own third culture that is a mix of the two. Their mom was also a TCK from Kenya whose heart, in her own words, “always beats to the rhythm of an African drum.”

Philip, the movie character, and I are different from them. We grew up in just one culture and were formed by it before moving abroad. He’s from Minnesota, and I’m from Kansas City. Yet, culture has its way of seeping in through the cracks, so even though guys like us take on things from our new culture, it’s different than being formed by it — we can keep things more compartmentalized.

Toward the end of the movie Philip opens up about his regret in not going back to America for his father’s funeral. He never says why he didn’t go, even after showing up to the airport with his ticket in hand. There’s complexity to such things. His relationship with his father was not great. But there’s also ambivalence about “going home” for guys like Philip and me. There’s familiarity there, sure. But there’s also the heartache of familiar strangeness (or is it strange familiarity?) as well as the difficulty of yet another goodbye.

As our family looks ahead to prepping Monica and even Olivia for their re-entries to the States, a temptation is to let the laments of future losses pile up and rob us of our full presence here in Brazil. We must guard against it. We must also guard against giving our daughters the message that the culture they are returning to is worse than Brazil or just plain wrong. As we learned before coming to Brazil: cultures are neither right nor wrong, just different.

Marci and I have hopes and prayers for our daughters as they re-enter that they can come to peace with “mostly belonging” while they are in the States, and, looking back to Brazil, will see their unique journey as a bonus instead of a detriment.

Monica was recently asked to reflect on her experience as a TCK, including its pros and cons and said this:

Being a TCK is very difficult. No matter where I am, I am missing something from my other world. No matter how much I have in Brazil, I still miss my family in the US, and I still know that I will always be a foreigner in Brazil. I have dealt with jealousy of people who stay in the same place their whole life, but I moved past that, as I would never give up my life for the world.

Being bilingual is definitely one of my favorite things about being an MK [missionaries’ kid], as I have unlocked a new way of expressing myself. I have also learned valuable lessons about how to lose, grieve, grow, and thrive. I find my experiences of learning how to create my belonging in unfamiliar places very useful. I also like the uniqueness of my story.

Even though people who aren’t TCKs can’t understand me, I still value my unique experiences. To have your own third culture that’s a mix of both worlds is priceless. To mix languages and cultural norms from two distinct places is fun, and it’s a part of me. Looking back at all the hardships, I find what I’ve gained to be more than what I’ve lost.

As our family continues to split further into two hemispheres, the power of physical presence will remain a sore spot in my soul. Like Monica, I too feel that pull of longing to be with family in the States and treasuring my time there. But, at the same time, my home is not there. It’s here in Brazil. And it’s familiarly strange for me to be here, even after seven years. And that’s okay.

Hebrews has long been my favorite biblical book, and even more so since I moved to Brazil. Although there aren’t a lot of people who can understand my daughter or me, Jesus can. And Jesus is enough. I’m thankful for His presence. It’s beyond powerful. And it’s no act or lie. The family of God is not for rent.

~~~~~~~

Brandon Jones grew up in Kansas City, married a missionaries’ kid from Kenya, and with her has raised three children both off and on the mission field. He served as a professor and pastor in the States for several years before becoming an international missionary in Brazil in 2018.

TCKs and the Balancing Act of Achievement

On a Wednesday afternoon we drove into the campsite and settled on a hill overlooking a beautiful river in central Taiwan. The slopes were covered with greenery — trees, bamboo, flowers — and various birdcalls echoed around us.

Three buses disgorged nearly a hundred grade 12 students from three campuses around the island. I was the guest speaker for their Senior Retreat — a time to consider the big upcoming transition as they prepared to complete high school and (in most cases) begin military service and/or leave the country for university studies.

In my sessions, we discussed practical preparations before leaving, how to process our emotions on either side of the Big Change, even how different it can be to build relationships (and date!) in a new culture. There was one topic which held their attention more than any other. So much eye contact, intensity, and notetaking. And it was first thing on Friday morning, when many of them were tired!

The topic? Failure.

“I Have to be Perfect”

Over the past twenty years of working with TCKs, this topic has come up repeatedly. Fear of failure showed up even among those with parents and teachers who were very loving and supportive, who did not put high expectations on them.

In conversation and interviews TCKs said, “I have to be perfect!” I would ask them, “Who told you that?”

In most cases, what followed was several moments of silence, perhaps a cocked head, as they reached through memory and often responded, “Actually, I can’t remember anyone saying that exactly”

In some cases there was a verbally expressed expectation for their behaviour. People knew them, knew their parents, knew about their parents’ work. The way they acted in public reflected on others. It mattered.

In my book Misunderstood I described it this way:

Many TCKs I interviewed felt they had no space to fail, internalising a pressure to live up to the standards of their parents’ occupations. Foreign service and MKs were most likely to make these comments; several had been told outright, often in a serious sit-down talk, that their actions had repercussions for others — reflecting negatively or positively on their parents, their country, or even their God.

Many TCKs, whether this is said directly to them or not, carry a weight of responsibility to be good representatives of their parents’ cause.

Many MKs feel this both while living abroad, among a people their family desires to witness to, and while visiting their passport country, as they are presented to sponsoring churches — and feel the pressure to perform for the people who pay for their family’s way of life.

In TCK Training’s 2024 survey of over 1,000 missionary kids,

54% of missionary kids felt “pressure to be perfect” while living abroad
69% of missionary kids felt “pressure to perform” while visiting their passport country

Warped Sense of Normal

The other big issue is that most TCKs grow up with a warped sense of normal. That is, they compare themselves to elite achievement — then decide they must be failing, or at least falling behind.

80% of MKs grew up with at least one parent who held an advanced degree. Compare that to how many adults in the world hold any degree at all! (That’s about 20-30% in the Western world.)

About 95% of TCKs take at least some university classes. The highest numbers I could find worldwide for university entrance were in the USA, pre-covid, where 60% of high school graduates did at least some university study. And that’s just those who completed high school. It doesn’t count those who previously dropped out.

I’ve been to many international school graduations, and typically about one third of students have a cord/sash or other indicator to publicly display that they attained a straight A average.

None of this is ‘normal’ anywhere in the world. But this is the ‘normal’ our MKs grow up with. This is the set of expectations they assume they must live up to. When they excel, they see that as expected — not something to celebrate.

Instead of celebrating their successes, many TCKs instead breathe a sigh of relief. They didn’t fail. This time. But soon enough, there’s another potential future failure to fear.

Lessons about Failure

All this explains why, on that warm pre-storm morning in central Taiwan, nearly one hundred students watched me intently as I began to explain that the way so many of them felt inside — that pressure to excel, that fear of failure — was a common experience. That it was not a personal failing. And most important, that there was a way through it.

I shared two important lessons with them.

1) Failure is a stepping stone to success.

Ask anyone who has succeeded in their field, and they’ll tell you about the litany of failures on the way to their eventual success. No one gets it right the first time. And even if they did, that’s not how you learn. We learn far more from failure than we do from success.

Perhaps this seems obvious to you. But I guarantee, for most young TCKs this concept is a revelation!

2) Failure shows you who cares.

So many TCKs spend their lives trying to be good enough, trying to live up to something, with the unspoken belief that when they get it wrong, relationship will be negatively impacted.

And so I tell them. It is when we fail, when we get things wrong, when we show our human weakness — those are the times we see the depth of genuine relationship in our lives. That’s when we see who loves us for who we are, not for our performance.

How Can Adults Help?

TCKs need to hear us talk about our mistakes, our failures, and our weaknesses. They need to know that we don’t have it all together — and that we never did.

They need models of getting it wrong, picking yourself up and trying again, and learning through the process. They need to know that they are loved and cared for even when everything goes wrong. We can’t assume they know these things. We need to say it out loud.

We need to say, “You are more important to me than your grades.”

We need to say, “I’ve failed so many times. It’s hard, but I got through it.”

We need to say, “I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be.”

Many of the solutions I propose in this article seem simple, especially considering the magnitude of the problem. But that’s the point! There are lots of little things we can do that make a big difference for the TCKs in our lives. And now that we know how much these things matter, it’s time to start being intentional about doing them.

Ready or Not, Here We Come: Our First Furlough After 10 Years

Black bins with yellow lids are beginning to fill the empty spaces in our house and a six-week countdown of little airplanes is now displayed on the fridge. I’ve got a stack of homeschooling books piled on the floor and a notebook full of lists started (an attempt to organize my brain a little more).

Some of our better-looking clothes have already been packed away, along with a few of our favorite games and a candle labeled Home, Sweet Home. Memory books with dust engrained over the years, favorite stuffed animals from earlier days, and my collection of words — poetry and prayers penned in the longest and hardest season of my life — are all carefully placed beside the bins, nestled against the wall.

We are currently planning our very first furlough back to North America. I have spent a total of nine weeks in North America over the past seven years. It’s recently dawned on me that we will arrive on the exact day we first arrived in Uganda back in 2016. We will celebrate ten years abroad by being welcomed back home to North America. A whole lot of life has been lived in the past decade, most of it in a very uncertain season for our family — with no end date, no return trips planned, or any idea of how the Lord would make a way.

It’s been a life lived dependent on the Lord in every area.

When circumstances crashed wildly and obliterated our expectations of serving abroad years ago, we were left with hands open in full surrender. But I can testify that the Lord has met me in this waiting place and even now as I’m trying to walk in a new space — transition.

It will be the first time we pack up the house to keep all the living things and dust from descending while we are away for nine months. It will be the first time to meet family members in person, the first time to experience playing with cousins, the first time to travel across the ocean with every member of our family, the first time to fully feel the relief of a challenging adoption journey, and the first break from an extended time serving abroad.

So, imagine what a gift it was to feel so understood in this new season of uncertainty. I couldn’t believe the timing of the conversation with a friend back home last week. It had been years since we had spoken in real time, and it was as if I was looking at a reflection of my own weary and joy-filled heart. Like we had been traveling parallel journeys unknowingly.

We chatted early into the morning my time (thank you eight-hour time difference!), but it was such a gift of God’s goodness to me and a reminder that He has gone before us even now.

For so long I have sought to discover the goodness found even in the hard, uncertain, and lengthy waiting place. Honestly, it has all caught me by surprise, with desperate prayers answered in recent months, absolute miracles paving the way, and a new season of celebration drawing us in.

I am so incredibly grateful, and I’m feeling the weight of what this life has been.

I feel as if I’m limping out of a war zone and shots are still being fired even now with the end in sight. I’ve never experienced being in transition like this before. My emotions are spilling over in tears of grief and joy and relief. My arms feel too weak to hold all this goodness and joy bubbling, and I could shout it from the mountain top of how faithful the Lord has been.

Even when things became really hard.
Even when chaos threatened to destroy our very hearts.
Even when saying no to corruption, knowing it would cost us time.
Even when choosing His way meant dying to what we wanted.

How gracious the Lord is to remind me that I have been securely held this entire time. By the hands who have helped us to take hold of our children, by financially covering us to keep serving others across the ocean, by cultivating a ministry that’s thriving, by the persistent prayers of those far away, and in all the ways the Lord has written His provision and His faithfulness into our testimony.

Even now, as I’m caught in the middle of feeling a whole lot of emotions.

The loss and the joy.
The celebration and the sorrow.
The overwhelm and the excitement.
The gratitude and the utter exhaustion.

Oh, the tears that have been falling as I struggle to find my footing in a new season of living in the AND.

Perhaps it’s the relief I am bound to feel as I’m embraced in a long-awaited hug, or meeting nieces and nephews for the first time, or the joy of seeing my children experience everything (and I mean everything) in North America for the first time. Maybe it’s the walks in parks with leaves changing colors, or knowing there are friends walking similar journeys back home, just traveling down different roads.

I’m learning to hold space for the whole story, because it’s not all glory and it’s not all pain. I have discovered there is a great deal of peace to be found in the wilderness seasons, but what about the grief I’m feeling in a season filled with so much joy? It’s a tender place of straddling the unknown of the “not yet” and the joyful celebration of “look what’s coming.”

In recent days, new immigration changes in our home country are implicating our already complicated life and we’ve just experienced the Lord move in an impossible situation that loomed before us. And He has made things even better than we could have imagined.

If you find yourself in at the threshold of a new season or you are feeling the tension of grief and joy, I pray this place of transition leads you to root even deeper in the Lord. Though the waves of uncertainty are trying to overturn us, though we may be tossed about by circumstances out of our control, He is in the boat with us saying, “Peace, be still.”

The words of Psalm 40:1-3 have been resounding in my heart lately:

I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me and heard my cry for help. He brought me up from a desolate pit, out of the muddy clay, and set my feet on a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear, and they will trust in the Lord.

God is at work in even the smallest details, even as I celebrate with tears flowing like little rivers of healing, embrace gratitude and the grieving, and live in the in-between places of this incredibly complicated life. I have known Him in the wilderness of waiting and persistent aching. And with a grief that lingers while praises pour from my lips, my heart is incredibly overwhelmed with the goodness of God. I can testify to His faithfulness as He continues to gently lead me in the uncertainty and the celebrating.

Making Growing Up Global Wildly, Outrageously Worth It

She bounded over the dirt hill, her pink shirt clashing gloriously against a red-and-green skirt, blonde ponytail bouncing, dishes allegedly done.

I was eight years old, American, and a rule-follower to my bones. Tirza was Swiss with a hint of spirited spice, and she had just put all the dirty dishes in the oven so she could join me to build a palm frond fort.

When she told me what she’d done, with nonchalance to boot, I could hardly believe my ears, and I lost all composure.

That was the beginning of one of the most formative friendships of my childhood in Cameroon. Tirza became my best friend, but she was also instrumental in unleashing my courage.

With her at my side, I ventured into parts of Cameroon I never would have explored alone — buying beignets in broken French, taking a canoe downriver for a midmorning picnic, and saying yes to adventures that felt risky enough to be thrilling and just a little bit dangerous. She turned, “But what if I get hurt?” into “Let’s give it a go!”

She connected me to the country in ways a classroom never could have. I grew insatiably curious about Cameroon and whatever adventure lay around the corner.

I didn’t understand the lasting significance as a child, but Tirza gave me what researchers now call one of the most powerful gifts a child can receive: a friend who helps you feel known, seen, and brave enough to explore an untamed world that’s begging to be discovered.

Growing up global can be outrageously scrumptious. Cross-cultural friendships, markets bartered in, metros taken solo, languages lived rather than memorized, and faith that expands beyond a monocultural lens. There is something deeply formative that happens when a child grows up, leaving no stone unturned in our big, blue world. I want to say that clearly before I say anything else, because what follows is in service of protecting something worth protecting.

What Tirza gave me had a name, it turned out. It was one of seven Positive Childhood Experiences, or anchors that researchers now know dramatically shape a child’s long-term outcomes. They all boil down to connection. Connection in the family and connection in the community. For TCKs, even when all three PCEs related to the home are perfectly intact, the four rooted in community disappear with every move.

When I learned about these PCEs, I knew everyone touching global life needed to understand this — parents, teachers, grandparents, sending organizations — because every one of them can become an anchor for TCKs no matter where they are in the world.

In 2021, TCK Training published research that woke up the expat community. In a survey of nearly 2,000 TCKs, research director Tanya Crossman found that the international life we love and believe in also correlated with higher rates of childhood trauma. In the general population, a little over one in ten children scored in the high-risk range for Adverse Childhood Experiences in the U.S. For missionary kids, that number climbed to nearly one in five. In the business expat sector, nearly one in three.

Does that mean growing up global is bad for kids? Well no, because we also learned something else. 71% of TCKs say global life is the best way to grow up, and 90% say their childhood was overall good. Global life is good. But something does need to change.

Positive Childhood Experiences are the very factors that mitigate those risks. TCKs with all seven were 63% less likely to be diagnosed with anxiety, 86% less likely to develop PTSD, and 2.2 times more likely to be proud of their parents’ work abroad. These kids weren’t just treading water with global life. They were proud of it. The anchors work — but only when they’re attached to the boat needing them.

The stats made sense. I knew the world needed to hear it because the adult TCKs I spoke with and the families I debriefed were all saying the same thing, “This stuff makes a difference, I wish I would have known this sooner.”

The stats needed flesh. The research needed to become personal and usable. But beyond that, I wanted parents to know more than risk mitigation. They needed to know just how incredible a global childhood can be and why. Nourished is what came from that need. It’s where research, story, empathy, and actionable steps meet in a user-friendly way for parents and caregivers who are already giving their all and who need someone who understands their story and what’s getting in the way.

When I started writing Nourished, I had no idea the magnitude of the task I was taking on. I was determined that four questions needed clear answers for each PCE, and anything short of that depth would fall short. For each one we needed to know: Why does it matter? What happens in adulthood for kids who don’t get it? What unique challenges do parents abroad face in providing it? And how do we actually provide it?

The rigorous research alone took an immense amount of time, and the pages kept filling up. I quickly realized that the faith-based integrations I cared deeply about were not going to be done justice if I tried to cram them into this book, so I developed a companion Biblical Study Guide, specifically for faith-based families.

Nourished isn’t a magic bullet for raising a family overseas. But it does provide language for why your gut might feel like something needs to change—and exactly what pivots might help. Or why your child does so well in one place and not in another. Or why two children growing up in the same home may have such different experiences and how to better support the gaps.

What I keep hearing from readers is, “I feel seen” and “This isn’t just for TCKs. All kids need this.” Which takes me back to something I wrote on page 54:

The public high school teacher in me wants to shout from the mountaintops that PCEs are crucial for all children. Whether you work with TCKs or monocultural kids, you’re changing outcomes for the kids in your care. But TCKs face unique vulnerabilities that make supportive relationships even more critical. We’re not just trying to avoid adverse outcomes. We want to actively unleash the beautiful potential that comes from growing up global.

At nineteen, newly repatriated from my childhood in Cameroon, I walked across a Midwest university campus drowning in a sea of people who looked exactly like me, but had no idea who I was. I started making choices that confused even me. I hadn’t lost my faith. I hadn’t turned into someone unrecognizable for no reason. I had simply lost too many anchors. And without them, even the most resilient, faith-filled child may drift in the storm.

I know now why having Tirza was a much bigger part of God’s plan for childhood than someone to build forts with. So was our English teacher, Ms. Baker, who made cookies for us after soccer practice, the annual missionary game nights, and the jungle that left its untamable imprint on my heart. These were the parts of belonging to a global village that God meant to work together for my good and His glory. TCKs feel it deeply when any of these pieces are missing. And when they’re present, so many TCKs grow to develop the exact strengths we crave to see in the world.

In your world right now, there is a TCK with the potential for exactly what Tirza gave me — a friendship that flings the door open to exploration, a knowledge that the world is huge and also within reach, and a global childhood that makes them ferociously alive. And friendship is only one of seven key anchors. Nourished is your guide to all of them, and to building the kind of village that makes a global childhood wildly, outrageously worth it.

Access Nourished here.

Access the companion Biblical study guide here.