Tag: children

Dear Missionary Mom of Littles

Dear Missionary Mom of Littles,

I see you.

I’m starting with that, because I know that often you don’t feel seen. You stay home with the kids while your husband goes out to teach the Bible study. You hang around the back of the church, trying to keep the baby quiet. You have to leave the team meeting early so that your toddler gets his nap.

Of course, every mom of littles, in any culture, is going to struggle with similar things. But I think that this particular season of life is even harder on missionary moms.

Quite likely, you are raising your kids in isolation. You don’t have your own parents or other relatives nearby to help out. There isn’t a Mommy-group at your church or a pee-wee soccer league in your city. There might not even be a McDonald’s Playland or a safe park to walk to. And you feel trapped.

Yes, there are other ladies in your host country with small children. But they may be parenting their children very differently from you. They might live in their mother-in-law’s house. They might put their kids in all-day preschool at two years old, or hire a full-time nanny, or be okay with letting their children freely roam the streets. They might criticize you for not keeping your child warm enough or spoiling them too much or not spoiling them enough or for giving your child a popsicle, even when it’s 90 degrees outside. And you feel very alone.

Maybe you’re remembering earlier days, when you worked right alongside your husband, or when your job felt significant. When your ministry was thriving and you could look back at the end of the day and feel satisfied with all you accomplished. Now you feel exhausted but have nothing to show for it. Your newsletters are full of your husband’s adventures, but you don’t have anything to contribute. And your life just feels….boring.

And you may wonder, What’s the point? Why am I here? You know the importance of spending these years with your little ones, but it feels like you could be doing the exact same job in your home country. Except there, your life would be less lonely and less difficult.

I was you for ten years. When I see you, I remember.

This is what I learned, and this is what I want you to know today.

Be creative. You get the opportunity to take the best parts of parenting from multiple cultures. You don’t have to do it exactly like they do, but you also don’t have to raise your children exactly the way you were raised. Work within your host culture’s expectations of raising children. Maybe that means hiring a part-time nanny or housekeeper. Maybe that means letting your kids play outside in much colder or hotter weather than your home country.

Find your ministry niche. This is so, so important for moms of littles. True, you probably won’t be able to engage in full-time ministry during this season. But find something. Something that will allow you to use your gifts and interests in your host culture. Maybe it’s hospitality. Maybe it’s doing accounting while your kids are napping. Maybe it’s teaching for a few hours a week. Maybe it’s connected to what your husband is doing, but maybe it’s not. Either way is okay.

Embrace the advantages of this season. Adorable small children are a great way to start relationships. Even better, people talk slower and more simply to children—which is exactly what you need as a language learner. And if the combination of your kids and your city restrict you to your house most of the time, then think of this as an excellent season for learning. Listen to language lessons during playtime. Read books on culture during nap time. Pepper your neighbor with questions about culture. You will learn a side of your host country that your husband or teammates won’t see, and that is an important contribution.

Be brave. Cross-cultural work is always hard, but it might be easier for your husband, who has a school or office or business to go off to every day. It can be a lot harder for a mom who needs to summon up the courage to knock on the neighbor’s door, initiate the conversation in a new language, get to know the woman who just criticized your baby’s sockless feet. Sometimes it feels easier to just stay home. Fight against that tendency.

Be faithful. This season will not last forever. It feels like it—trust me, I know. The days are endless and mind-numbing, but one day you will throw away your last diaper or brush your last set of teeth. Your kids will become more independent and you won’t have to watch them every waking second. Your life will not always be this restrictive or exhausting.

Hang in there, Mom of Littles. Take joy in their giggles, pray through the long nights, and get up in the morning. God will not waste your faithfulness.

 

If you live cross-culturally and are not a mom of littles, I encourage you: Show these missionary moms you see them. Hold the baby. Offer to baby-sit. Ask for their contributions in your strategic planning. Value their voices. Work around their schedules. Look for ways to use their gifts. You and your team will be stronger for it.

My littles from nine years ago. Seems like yesterday.

Thoughts on Entry, Reentry, and Third Culture Kids


Every summer I begin thinking about change and transition, about reentry and culture shock. With the first warm breezes of the season, I am transported to places and times where this was my reality. And I begin to hear stories from others who are going through these transitions. The stories are told in photographs and short, often humorous, statements, hiding the tremendous impact of transnational moves.

When I began looking into information on reentry, I came across refugee resettlement and orientation programs for refugees entering a country. I was struck by how much the advice resonated with me as a third culture kid. While on one level the TCK and the refugee experience are worlds apart, the goals and the realistic expectations in refugee orientation programs are remarkably helpful.

Because orientation for the refugee is not just about theory and information, it is designed to give the refugee “the opportunity to develop realistic expectations regarding their resettlement, to consider different situations that might arise in a new country, and develop skills and attitudes that will facilitate their adjustment and well-being”*

The first thing I realized is that we, like the refugee or immigrant, don’t ‘reenter’. Instead we ‘enter’ a world that is not familiar, a world that calls up all of our flexibility and ingenuity to adjust. It may seem like a small thing, but the difference between those words is huge. 

So I began developing my own list for my tribe, the third culture kid tribe. I offer it here with hopes that both those who enter and those who re-enter may find a nugget of truth. I’d love to here your thoughts through the comment section!

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  • Realistic time expectations. Entering a new world is a journey and it rarely happens in three months or six months. We are moving to a new country, a new world. As such it deserves all the attention we would give to going into a totally different culture. Transitioning to a new life in our passport country is far bigger than spending a summer vacation there. Give yourself a minimum of two years, but don’t be surprised if it takes five.
  • Accepting that we are a combination of worlds. As TCKs, our worlds are woven together in a semi-formed tapestry. Many of us feel like completely different people when we’re in our passport countries. We are not chameleons and we are not impostors; rather we’re trying to make sense of our worlds and figure out what cultural adaptation looks like as we effectively transition to our passport countries. Yes – there is loss of identity. But as we work through these losses, our identities as those who can live between worlds emerge stronger than ever.
  • Understanding culture shock. We don’t go through reverse culture shock – we go through culture shock. Reverse culture shock means we know a culture, have been away from it, and are returning to differences we didn’t expect. In our case, we don’t really know this culture we are entering. We may think we know it, because our passports tell us we should, but we don’t. And while reverse culture shock is described as “wearing contact lenses in the wrong eyes”, culture shock is having completely different lenses.
  • Giving voice to a longing. Struggling to give voice to our longings is enormous. Somehow it doesn’t feel valid. But giving voice to our longings is legitimate. Our world as we know it has ended. We may be able to visit our home, our adopted country, but we know that we must have a valid and legal way to stay there should we wish to go back.

    We will have times of intense longing and wistfulness for what no longer exists.

    This can be captured best in the word ‘saudade’, a Portuguese word that came into the existence in the 13th century. “The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness. ~ In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G. Bell”  Giving voice to ‘saudade’ helps take away its power and ability to control. The longings are there, they are valid, but if they control us we will despair. Our longings can be expressed through writing, through connecting to other TCKs, through the visual arts, through theatre, through faith, and through friendships.

  • Understand the shaping of our worldview. While our parents went overseas with already developed worldviews and through their interactions in their host countries had their worldviews affected, ours began developing in our host country. Our first memories may be the sound of the Call to Prayer or a dusty road and traffic jam involving a buffalo, two donkey carts, and our parent’s jeep. They may be of a crowded and colorful bazaar filled with colorful fabrics and bangles. Our experiences shape our worldview this will probably differ markedly from those of our parents and those of our peers in our passport countries. Having realistic understanding and expectations on differing worldviews helps us to not expect or demand that others understand us.
  • Faith can be complicated. For many of us, faith is paramount to who we are. But it gets tangled up in our adjusting to life in our passport countries. It’s particularly difficult if we feel we can’t question God, express disbelief or doubt, or change denominations because it feels disloyal to our parents.This can inhibit our honesty as it relates to our faith journeys. Perhaps doubt was never a part of our faith journey before, but now that our world has changed the doubts surface. A question emerges: “Will the faith that sustained us through our journey thus far be big enough to get us through this crucial juncture?” It’s an important question and often we need to find people beyond our parents who can hear and understand us, speaking truth into our faith and our doubt.
  • The importance of cultural brokers. Often there emerges someone who doesn’t share our background but understands in a way that defies our understanding. This is a gift. This is the person that explains life to us, that walks beside us. This is the one that looks through our high school yearbook and says“Now who’s this with you? And did you go on that camping trip where you got in trouble for sneaking over to where the boys were sleeping before or after this picture was taken?” This personal interest helps us understand what friendship, listening, and cultural brokering look like. So learn from them. Look to them. But don’t put undue burdens on them.
  • Place is significant – significant physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As humans, at our core is a need for ‘place’. Call it ‘belonging’, call it ‘home’, call it anything you like. But all of us are integrally connected to place. We are incarnate beings and so when those places are taken away, we suffer from a “disruption” of place. It is clear that the TCK has a disruption of place – and often multiple times in their lives. If the disruption goes beyond our ability to adapt it becomes a pathology. The late Paul Tournier, a gifted Swiss psychologist, calls this a “deprivation of place”. He says that to be human is to need a place, to be rooted and attached to that place. Many of us downplay this connection to place by over spiritualizing it or underestimating its importance. We need not dismiss it, we need not idolize it; we must only acknowledge it and recognize it as valid.
  •  The yearning heart. All of us have a heart that yearns for belonging, for acceptance, for love. This is the human condition. It’s a fundamental truth and it is not unique to the third culture kid. What is hard is tying this in with all of our TCK experiences, life story, and worldview. It is easy for us to mistake our yearning for only that which we left, instead of remembering that we had a heart that yearned before we ever left our passport countries. If we can grow in an understanding of our hearts, what is global and universal in our yearning, and what is specifically tied to being a third culture kid, we are in a good place.  A desire for place is universal, a desire for our particular place, whether it be Buenos Aires or Bolivia or Cairo or Lebanon, is specific to our TCK background.
  • The need for grace. In the midst of all of this, it is so easy to want grace, and so hard to give grace. Yet all of this is about grace. The grace that we were given by our host country, the grace of others who walked beside us as kids, the grace of our parents in caring and loving even when they don’t fully understand. Those of us who ‘get’ grace will find it easier to give grace. Can we give grace to those who we feel dismiss us, hurt us, misunderstand us, or don’t like us? Can we give grace to the people who we misunderstand, who we don’t like, who we dismiss?

None of this is a formula and it is not a list of stages. Although there are similarities that bind us together as TCK’s, ultimately we each have our own unique story.

Walking through the entry process and emerging on the other side is one more chapter in that story, one more pattern in the ever-evolving tapestry of our lives.

8 Tips For Keeping Kids Engaged During Phone Or Video Calls

If you have children and live overseas, you probably spend time with them on the phone or video call with far-away family.

How does that generally go for you?

Our children (aged 3 and 5) approach every video call with their grandparents with tremendous anticipation and evident delight. They sit still and pay close attention during the entire conversation. They answer every question when they’re asked, and they ask thoughtful and relevant questions themselves. Indeed, video calls with relatives are a family-fun highlight of the week. We all emerge from them feeling more bonded and relaxed.

OK, so that’s not really how it goes most of the time.

In fact, just this week out three-year-old came running up 4 minutes into a call with his grandparents, yelled out, “Bye bye! All done now!” and tried to shut the laptop on them.

Helping kids connect with far-away family and friends by phone or video call can be frustrating and exhausting. It’s always a bit “hit or miss” when it comes to kids and calls, but if you’ve been having more “misses” than “hits” on this front lately, you might want to try some of these tips.

  1. Schedule ahead

Consider making “kids included” calls a regular part of your routine (e.g., every second Saturday morning) and schedule these “all family” calls for times when your kids are not likely to be too tired or hungry.

  1. Keep calls to a reasonable length

Even if it’s been a while since you last talked, resist the temptation to make calls extra-long to make up for preceding weeks of no contact. You don’t want to turn these calls into infrequent extended chores that children learn to dread.

If you do want to have a longer chat, let the kids know they can run off and play at some point.

  1. Use a webcam when you can

Use a webcam whenever internet bandwidth and data plans allow. Even if your computer doesn’t have one build in, external webcams are cheap, easy to set up, and add enormously to the quality of the contact. If relatives don’t have webcams on their end, buy them one for Christmas and install it during a home visit.

One word of caution, however. Don’t push communication styles that step too far outside another person’s comfort zone. For example, if a grandparent is partially deaf, phone and video calls might be very taxing. They may prefer to send emails or instant message so that they can catch everything.

  1. Prepare a “show and tell” with kids beforehand

If your child struggles to connect well on Skype, encourage them to identify something they want to talk about or show family before the call (toys, books, something from school, bugs–whatever).  

You can also ask kids in advance if there’s anything they want to ask. Then you can help them remember their question during the call.

  1. Do something during the call

Don’t do all your calls sitting on the couch or at a table. Especially if you have very young children, try doing the call in the playroom while you’re sitting on the floor doing something together (like building a train set or a tower). Having an activity to do can help calm and focus children.

You can always try following kids around with your phone or the laptop, too. The person on the other end would probably love to see them riding the kids riding their bike, etc.

  1. Try a bath-time call

If you have young kids who sit and play in the bath, do a call during bath-time. That way the kids are a (relatively) captive audience. Keep your captive audience entertained with bubbles in the bath, bath crayons, or other bath toys.

  1. Ask kids good questions

If you’re the person on the other end of the line, it may help you to know that children often freeze up or struggle to talk via telephone or computer.

You can help them by asking a couple (not dozens) of open-ended questions that require the children to give more than a simple yes or no answer.

Click here to download a list of 30 questions you can ask kids during phone or video calls.

Once you’ve asked a question, give children time to come up with those answers. Don’t rush in too fast to fill pauses or silence—children may just be struggling to find some words.

And try not to take it personally if the child doesn’t seem interested in talking on a particular call. Kids are going to be kids at times, whether they’re on a special bi-monthly family call not.

  1. Read stories together

Have you ever tried doing a story-session via video call? Have the person on the other end read a story to the children. This tends to work best if you both have a copy of the book on hand, especially if kids are young.

Or, try Caribu. This app turns video calls into story time Both readers are visible on the screen while reading. Available on iPhone and iPad.

If children are a little older, you can try reading chapters from a book that holds their attention. Our five-year-old has just become engrossed in Enid Blyton’s classic, The Enchanted Wood. He will happily sit still and focus for at least 20 minutes listening to that story without needing to see the book, and the chapters are just the right length and cadence for “read-aloud.”

He has also (somewhat to my surprise, I must admit) responded well to my mother playing a reading game using flash-cards on Skype.

  1. Play a game together

There are lots of options for these, but here are just two games you can play via video call.

Show me: If children know and love your place, let them tell you what they want to see. Then take the phone or laptop and show it to them.

Find something that starts with: Give the child a letter of the alphabet and ask the child to go and find something in the house that starts with that letter. Then they have to show you on camera.

I know many of you have a lot of experience with kids and calls.
What tips and tricks would you share?
What games or activities do you do via video?

Don’t Ask Me About My Christmas Traditions

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My first Christmas on African soil was when I had just turned six years old.  We had arrived in Liberia only three weeks earlier, and my mom was in the throes of major culture shock.  My parents had shipped over a few presents, but nothing else for Christmas.  My mom managed to find a two-foot plastic tree at a store, and decorated it with tiny candy canes wrapped in cellophane.  After just a few days, the candy canes turned into puddles inside their wrappers.  My mom says it was the most depressing Christmas she’s ever had. 

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Our first Liberian Christmas: My brother and I with our punching balloons, and my sad Mama.

I remember that Christmas, but the funny thing is, I thought it was great.  I remember being concerned how Santa would get into our house without a chimney, but my parents assured me they would leave the door unlocked.  We had a tree, we were together, and it was Christmas.  I was happy.

Fast forward 25 years to when I started raising my own TCKs in tropical Africa.  I was a young mother around the time when social media was really taking off, and I felt suffocated under the expectations of creating a magical Christmas for my children, complete with handmade crafts and meaningful traditions. Not only that, but I was quite literally suffocating in a southern hemisphere tropical climate.  There weren’t going to be any pine trees or snuggling up in pajamas while going out to see Christmas lights.  In fact, the only festivity to be found in our city was a five-foot high, mechanical, singing Santa in our grocery store that terrified my two-year-old and made her run away screaming.

We can tell ourselves that “Jesus is the reason for the season”—and even believe it—but we all know that we have expectations for Christmas to be more than that.  The traditions, the parties, the “magic,” even the cold weather, all are wrapped up in what we dream Christmas is “supposed” to be.

Which is why my first few Christmases as an adult in Tanzania were hard.  I missed my family.  And I missed the smell of wood fires in the air, wearing hats and scarves, and Christmas carols by candlelight.  I mourned over what my children were lacking.   But then I remembered that first Christmas in Liberia, and how I really didn’t care about the absence of icicle lights or pumpkin pie.  I remembered other childhood Christmases in Africa, like when our neighbors from Arizona taught us the Mexican tradition of luminarias—paper bag lanterns that lined the road on Christmas eve.  Or how our British friends introduced us to Christmas crackers, or the time a German guest stuck sparklers in the turkey.  I remembered being thrilled with the goofy, cheaply made presents found at the open-air market.  Or that year in Ethiopia when the Christmas tree was just a green-painted broomstick with branches stuck in it.

Just as TCKs dread the question, “Where are you from?” as a child I also dreaded the question, “What are your family’s Christmas traditions?”  Because growing up, we didn’t have traditions.  Every year was different because we absorbed the traditions of the people around us.  We had a tree, we had each other, and we had joy.  That was enough.

I’ve learned to relax about trying to create traditions or give my children a magical Christmas.  I’ve learned to be happy with our green, warm Christmases in Tanzania, even if it means I need to delete the “winter” songs out of my holiday playlist in order to be content.  My kids don’t need Hershey’s kisses, black-and-gold velvet dresses, or Toys R Us catalogs to be happy.  It’s often refreshing to be away from the commercialism and the psychotic busyness of the States at this time of year.  In fact, sometimes the untraditional, lonely, sparse aspects of an overseas Christmas help us to identify with the Incarnation just a little bit better.

And as for our traditions in Tanzania, they have sprung up naturally, with little effort on my part.  We close the windows and splurge on air conditioning in the living room for two weeks in December.  We have a water balloon fight.  I love to bake, so we make gingerbread houses from scratch.  But even these traditions I hold loosely, knowing that every year will vary by country or climate or what’s available at the grocery store. 

If you are one of those amazing moms who manages to build traditions that transcend country and climate, go for it.  Share your ideas with us.  But if you can’t, or won’t, or the mere thought of it stresses you out, then take a lesson from my childhood and don’t worry about it so much.  If you have a tree—even if it’s two feet tall or made from a broomstick–if you are together, and if you have joy, that’s all you really need.

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No Easy Answers

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My mom and dad raised five children in Pakistan. At the time, options for educating children were limited. Here is her story about kids, trust, and ultimately learning that God loves and cares for her children. All five of us have come to know the God that she trusted.

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“Do YOU think it’s right to take innocent children to those heathen countries?”

The small elderly woman confronted me with the question. Ralph and I were newly appointed missionaries hoping to go to India. I glanced down at my tummy- had she guessed I was pregnant? I didn’t think it showed yet. I likely mumbled something about God’s will and tried to change the subject. We did take that innocent child with us to Pakistan, not India, and in the next 10 years we had four more. We were 20-somethings, full of hope and excitement and ideals. God in His mercy hid the future with its pain and struggle and tears of raising children overseas from us.

Not too many years later it had become clear to us that for most missionaries’ children in Pakistan boarding school was a part of that future. Our mission actively supported the founding of Murree Christian School in the northern mountains, eight hundred miles from where we lived. Five children from our mission were enrolled in its first year of existence.

“How can the Lord expect such an enormous sacrifice of us?” I asked myself. “It’s too much. I can’t do it. It can’t be right.” I struggled, asking how this could be God’s will for parents to send such young children away from home.

Eddie would start first grade in my home town during our first furlough. This timing put off our painful decision for a year. But God’s call to Pakistan was very clear to both Ralph and me. Did that call have to mean sending our children away at such a tender age?

In February 1959 Ralph went off to Karachi to arrange our furlough travel leaving me at home with the three children, behind the brick walls that surrounded our tiny courtyard. The Addleton family (Hu, Betty and their two little boys) were the only other foreigners in that small town in the desert and suggested we all go to the canal ten miles away for a picnic. Eddie was so excited that we were going to travel on the Queen Mary from England.

“I’m going to sail my Queen Mary in the canal,” he said, showing me the long string he had tied to a nail in the bow of his small wooden boat.

A couple of hours later, he stood at the edge of the canal, throwing his boat into the water and pulling it back. I kept an eye on him, but he was such a careful little boy. He would never fall in – Stan (his younger brother) might, but not Ed. A jeep driving along the dirt canal road, raised clouds of dust, and we checked the whereabouts of each of the children. Assuring they were all safe, we adults sipped mugs of coffee.

I looked around again just as the jeep passed us. Eddie was gone! I couldn’t see him anywhere. I jumped up and called his name, only to see his boat floating down the canal. Hu Addleton dove in, swam to the middle and began treading water, feeling the bottom with his feet. Bettie gathered up the little ones and the picnic things loading them into the Land Rover. I stood, helpless beside the canal. The water was so muddy, the current so swift. How could Hu possibly find my little boy in that murky water?

Then Hu called out, “I’ve found him!” He dove under and came up holding Eddie’s limp body. He handed Eddie up to me and somehow I knew what I had to do – that morning waiting for the Addletons to arrive, I had re-read a Readers’ Digest article about what was then a new method of artificial respiration, called “mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.” Eddie’s face was purple. I cleaned mud and sticks out of his mouth, before turning him onto his stomach to see a gush of water from his mouth. Laying him on his back, I started breathing into his mouth. Hu knelt beside us on that grassy canal bank praying loudly, begging God to give us back our son. How many minutes passed? I didn’t know, but then we saw a miracle! Eddie started breathing on his own!

I wrapped him in the picnic blanket and we hurried home in the Land Rover. Bettie took the younger children and Hu drove Eddie and me to the Mission Hospital fifty miles away. Eddie was still unconscious. I couldn’t voice my thoughts, “What about brain damage? How long had he been under water?”

But the miracle was not finished yet. As we neared the city of Sukkur, Eddie opened his eyes and sat up on my lap. He pointed to the lights of the irrigation dam across the Indus River. “Mommy,” he said. “That’s the Sukkur Barrage. Why are we in Sukkur?”

The Lord chose to give our son back to us, but He did not have to. We had given Eddie to the Lord before his birth. Three weeks later on his sixth birthday, my tears came in a flood. I sensed the Lord asking me to give my son back to Him, to relinquish ownership of all our children to Him, even if it meant sending them away to boarding school.

My prayers for our children began to change. While I had previously been focused on my feelings, my anticipated pain, my struggles, I was learning to ask God to fulfill His purposes for each of our children. I began to ask the Lord to show me ways I could prepare them for going away to boarding.

A year and a half later in Murree, I sat sewing name tags on Eddie’s school clothes. I heard a knock on the door and a friend walked in. She sat down and picked up a needle to help me. As we chatted, she shared a verse from Isaiah that the Lord had given her for her children in a time of crisis: “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children.” (Isaiah 54:13 KJV)

In those verses I knew I could trust the Lord to teach my children.

This did not mean abdicating our responsibilities. We were still their parents, but He would also put others into their lives to influence them in ways we couldn’t. In making this decision my husband and I also promised ourselves that if any of our five found being away from home too difficult, we would have to move to a large city with the right schools or leave our work in Pakistan. God’s call on our lives was primary, but it was first and foremost a call to Himself. The life He called us to had to be right for our children, too. He never asked us to sacrifice their best interests, only to let Him show us what was best for them. And He reminded me often that best also includes the hard.

As I prayed this scripture for our five children over many years, I asked the Lord to bring the people of His choice into their lives, to use them to mold and shape each one. I prayed for good friends and healthy friendships. I prayed for each one a “Jonathan” who would strengthen his or her hand in God. (I Samuel 23:16) I prayed for kind and loving dorm parents and understanding teachers. At times I had to accept that those in charge of my children were not always kind and loving. In God’s sovereignty, He occasionally put difficult people into their lives. But I learned I could thank the Lord for those He chose to mentor our children. I think of Auntie Eunice, a teacher who gave up teaching to spend her life as a housemother nurturing the smallest girls; of Auntie Inger, a widow, who prayed that each of her little boys would receive Christ as personal Savior; of Uncle Paul, from New Zealand, a great dorm parent to our boys. Someone said of Paul, “He gave those boys a long leash, but they knew he was there to pull them back.” I think of Chuck, principal of the school during most of the years our children attended; of Debbie, sent by the Lord to influence our own daughter, as well as so many other teenage girls. There were many others, more than I can name here.

Would we make the same decision today if we were young parents living overseas? With the internet and the homeschooling options available now, we would probably keep them home longer.

I have learned that each situation is unique. Every family is different. Each child has his or her own personality and needs. For you who are raising your children overseas, there are still no easy answers to these questions. May our loving Lord give you wisdom to discern what is best for them and the courage to trust the Lord to be their teacher. May all your children be taught by the Lord and may they experience His great peace.

About the author: Pauline Brown and her husband Ralph spent over 30 years in the Sindh desert of Pakistan. Pauline has five children and is now grandmother to 17 grandchildren, and great grandmother to a growing number of littles. She is the author of a book, Jars of Clay that chronicles the journey of a small group of ordinary missionaries in Pakistan.

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The Balancing Act of MK Education

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I can still picture them:  Miss Eager, Mrs. Sacra, Miss Davis, and many more.  They gave up a good salary and a steady career to teach missionary kids in an unstable African country.  And I was in their classrooms.

It was the investment of teachers like these who inspired me to pursue education as a career, specifically MK education.  And that’s exactly the path God has taken me.

My 7th grade class at ELWA Academy in Liberia, 1988 (I am front right)
My 7th grade class at ELWA Academy in Liberia, 1988 (I am front right in pink)

As a child living overseas, I experienced both MK school and boarding school.  As an adult, I’ve been involved in MK/TCK education for 12 years.  I’m passionate about MK education, and over the years have spoken to many missionaries about schooling decisions for their children.  Here is what I’ve learned.

 

First, what are the choices?  Some parents have many to choose from, others have only one.  Each has their own advantages and disadvantages to overseas life.

Homeschool:  Maybe you are called to it, no matter where you are living.  Or maybe it’s really the only option available to you.

Pros:  Homeschooling gives you complete control of your kids’ education, and gives the family a lot of flexibility.  It can make travel and transition easier, and it can be a great way to get the kids into the community and include them in your ministry.

Cons:  Homeschooling overseas tends to be more isolating than in your passport country, where there are lots of groups to join.  It also can be challenging for the homeschooling parent to get into the language and culture; and it limits external ministry options for that parent.

 

Missionary school (or Christian international school):  MK schools are not available for many missionaries, but it’s great when they are, because they are specially created to meet the needs of your kids.

Pros:  MK schools can be a great “bridge between worlds” for your kids, especially if the school includes local children.  Usually, MK schools provide good academic and social preparation for returning to your passport country and a safe, nurturing environment that doesn’t require a lot of cultural transition for your kids.

Cons:  Sometimes MK schools create a missionary “bubble” that keeps the children (or even the family) separated from the local culture and language.

 

Boarding school:  Even though boarding school sometimes gets a bad reputation, many wonderful boarding schools exist, and there are good reasons why it is the best option for some families.  I’ve known many families who said they would never send their kids to boarding school, but relented in the end because they could clearly see it was the best option for their kids.  And their kids thrived.

Pros:  For families in cultural settings where kids don’t get to experience any of western life, or if the culture doesn’t allow them to make peer friendships, boarding schools are a wonderful blessing.

Cons:  Pretty obvious:  Being apart stinks.  But often it’s worse for the parents than the kids.

 

Local school:  This is a diverse category!  There are local government schools or private schools, both in English or the local language.  These type of schools have a huge range in cost, resources, academic options, language, discipline style and social dynamics.

Pros:  Local schools can be an amazing way for a family to get into a community.  They are also one of the easiest ways for kids to learn another language and make local friends.

Cons:  These schools are often very different than western schools in culture, language, and teaching/discipline styles.  They can put kids on a huge learning curve, and parents will need to work closely with their children to know how far to push them and how much to support them.  Many times, parents will need to supplement their kids’ academics to make sure they will be ready to eventually assimilate into their home culture.

 

Some considerations when choosing:

  1. Know yourself and know your kids. 

You know yourself and your kids better than anyone else.  Regarding yourself, you need to ask:  Given my ministry calling, language learning requirements, and my own wiring, how much time and energy can I devote to my kids’ education?  Unless your kids are at an effective MK school or boarding school, you will likely need to be highly engaged with your kids’ learning.  More parents can effectively homeschool or supplement their kids’ education than they might realize, but it is important to consider how your kids’ schooling will balance with your ministry.

Regarding your kids, you need to ask:  How adaptable are my children?  Would they be able to handle school “cold turkey” in a new language?  How far can I push my kids in a hard situation without breaking their spirits?  How many transitions have they already gone through?   How will this type of education affect my child’s ability to make friends?

You might not always have the right answers, and even the right answers might change from year to year or kid to kid.  Every year and each child is different, and it is totally okay for each child to do school a different way.

As a side note, let’s remember that this is true for every family, so let’s make sure to support other family’s educational choices, even if they are different from our own.

 

  1. Remember that you are always your child’s most important teacher.

You, Mom and Dad, are the most important teachers in your children’s lives, whether or not you homeschool them.  Keep this in mind when considering their education.  Does your child’s school ignore the history of your passport country?  Then make the effort to teach it to them yourself during the summer months.  Is your child going to school in a different language?  Then you need to supplement their education with your own English lessons.  Is your child being indoctrinated by a secular worldview?  Then make sure you are actively and intentionally training them in a biblical one.  Don’t just sit by and fret about the gaps in your child’s education.  These days, there are a plethora of resources available to parents; take advantage of them.

 

  1. Don’t worry so much.

I attended seven schools growing up.  So much change was hard at times, but each school played a part in making me who I am today, and I’m thankful for those experiences.  A missionary friend told me how both her girls were held back a grade due to so many transitions, but eventually both graduated from college with honors.  As a teacher who is now raising her own kids, I am far more concerned about my kids’ social and spiritual progress than I am about their academic grades.  I know that the academics will come; the other stuff is a lot more important.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t worry at all.  Your kids’ education is a big deal, and you need to take it seriously.  But if they lose three months of school because of a move, or the homeschooling shipment doesn’t make it on time, or your kids’ MK school has a substandard substitute for six months, don’t panic.  In the older grades, it does get more complicated, but especially when they are young, your kids will recover.  As long as your kids are at least average learners, they will catch up.  It will be okay.

There is an exception:  If your child has a diagnosed learning disability, or if you have any suspicion he or she might have one, then you must take it very seriously.  Some learning disabilities absolutely require early intervention to have the best results.  So find a specialist to Skype with, and don’t put off getting help quickly.

 

  1. There’s never going to be a perfect situation, so trusting God is important.

Perhaps the best question to ask yourself is:  How can I best balance the needs of my children with the ministry God has called us to?  At times, you might feel like that balance is like standing precariously on the top of a sharpened pencil.

No matter what educational road you go down, there are going to be bumps.  There are going to be things your kids miss out on, there are going to be many transitions, and you will probably make the wrong decision sometimes.  Thankfully, God is holding our children, He knows what is best for them; and He can redeem even the hard circumstances of our kids’ lives.

 

This is a big issue; really too much for one blog post!  So let’s get the conversation started.  This is a great place to ask questions or share your advice.  What works for your family?  How about we hear from some MK’s themselves?  And if we broaden this discussion to non-missionary TCK’s, we can bring in other types of schooling as well.  How can you add to the discussion?  Lots of people want to hear! 

Little Lives In Big Transitions: 14 Ways to Help Children Cope Better With Change

It’s been five weeks since we said farewell to the house in Laos that we were still calling “new home” and boarded a plane to “Nana Papa home” in Australia. It’s less than a week now until we get on another plane that will take us to “ocean home” in Vanuatu—a place the kids and I have never even visited.

Confused?

Yeah, so are my kids.

Our little family has navigated a lot of transitions in the last four years. We moved houses while we were living in northern Laos. Then we moved down to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. And let’s not forget the two five-month sojourns I had to Australia to deliver our little boys, or the five months we spent here last year while my husband was receiving treatment for cancer.

Now we’re moving again, to Port Vila in Vanuatu.

I’m convinced this move is a good one for our family. That belief has helped ground me during this time of turmoil, but it hasn’t done much to buffer our children. I found it surprisingly painful this time around to uproot our three year old, Dominic, from a nurturing preschool in Laos, staff who adored him, and friendships that were just beginning to mean something. It hasn’t been easy for him, either. After all, we are not talking about a child who bobs along blithely on the choppy seas of change, but a child who had an epic meltdown yesterday because I parked a car somewhere different.

I know I’m not the only one out there struggling to figure out how to help my kids cope better with the huge changes that come along with living overseas. So, this month, I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve done with our kids recently.

1.  Read them stories about moving

A couple of months before leaving Laos, I started to introduce stories about moving into the bedtime routine. Boomer’s Big Day has been the clear favorite for my three year old, but Big Dan’s Moving Van, The Berenstain Bear’s Moving Day, A Kiss Goodbye and Augustine have also been good.

2.  Talked about moving

About three weeks before the move I started to talk about the process with the kids—the movers, the boxes, how we’d go on a plane to visit their grandparents, and then how we’d go to “ocean home”.

3.  Gave the new place a name

I was a bit stuck on this one, since we’d started calling our house in Laos “new home” when we’d arrived back there eight months earlier, and Dominic was still calling it that. We settled on “ocean home”.

4.  Let them pick something to pack

I let Dominic pick out one or two special things to take on the plane with us rather than shipping.

5.  Helped them say goodbye to important places and people

Every Friday, Dominic’s preschool staged little ceremonies to mark birthdays and farewells. So, on his last day at school, Dominic got to wear the “goodbye crown” and sit in the special chair at circle time. The teachers led the children in a farewell song, and the school had made and framed a big collage of photos featuring Dominic during his time there. After he was presented with this collage, Dominic was led around the circle of children and encouraged to give goodbye “high fives.”

Whenever we farewelled people or animals who had been important to us during our last week in country, I reminded Dominic that we were leaving and that we wouldn’t see them again for a long time. I wish I could say that Dominic entered into leave taking with great aplomb rather than covering his face with his hands and refusing to say goodbye to anyone (or our dog) with any degree of grace. Alas. But we did try.

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6.  Brought along familiar stories

I brought along some of both children’s favorite books. Having familiar stories to read before bed is one of the easiest (although not necessarily the lightest) ways to help create a sense of continuity and stability.

7.  Packed an “entertainment” kit

I packed a favorite toy or two, as well as some other small and light options for helping entertain kids. I’ve found all of the following to be very helpful: a small blow-up beach ball, balloons, crayons, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, matchbox cars, stickers, plastic laundry pegs, snacks like cheerios and raisons that they can pick up one by one, and (last, but certainly not least) an iPad and headphones for children.

8.  Went somewhere familiar in between old and new

We’ve spent several weeks here at my parent’s house in Australia in between leaving Laos and going to Vanuatu. My kids know and love this place, and I think that landing somewhere familiar after all the upheaval of the departure (and before all the “new” that’s coming) has been very stabilizing for them.

P_MG_61309.  Postponed other changes in existing routines

Dominic is three and a half years old and still sleeps with a pacifier. In fact, he prefers to sleep with at least four of them. I’d prefer he didn’t, but also know that right now is not the time to try to wean him off these little objects that he uses to self-soothe. The middle of a major life transition is not the time to try to toilet-train your child or make changes in other habits and routines.

10.  Made a map together

When we returned to Laos last year, I took a giant piece of cardboard from one of our packing boxes and started to make a map with the kids. Every time we went to a new place or house—the markets, the doctors, school, Katrina’s house, etc—we would come home and draw it on our map. We added to this map over the eight months we were there, and Dominic often asked to pull it out and talk about it. I’ll be making a new one in Vanuatu.

11. Assembled photo collages

I’m taking about 50 photos with us when we leave next week—pictures of family and extended family, some friends, and some of the adventures we had together in Laos. Soon after we get to Vanuatu, I’ll assemble a collage to put in the kid’s play space. I want them to have physical photos, down on their level, they can touch and talk about.

P108064112.  Made friends with families with kids

Trying to make friends (and help the kids meet other children) is a priority after ever move. If you can make friends with some families who have kids, you’ll be on your way to building a strong network of relationships in your new home.

13. Hired someone to help in our home

Living overseas often brings with it some unusual stressors and some unusual luxuries. Having help with the cleaning and laundry has allowed me to spend relatively more time focused on our children. It has also widened the circle of adults that our children know and love. I’ve tried it both ways now (during the first year of Dominic’s life I barely left his side). I’m much happier and I think it’s better for the kids when I involve other trusted adults in their care. It really does take a village to raise a child (at least, it seems to take a village to raise my children). When you live overseas most of your village is inaccessible on a practical level. The staff you hire to help in your house will become important figures in your new village.

P152005414.  Periodically left the kids in the care of other people

It’s tempting to try to buffer your kids from the stresses of change by keeping them close by all the time. It’s not ideal to land in-country and leave your kids in the care of people you don’t know on the second day there. On the other hand, it is good for your kids to learn, relatively quickly, that you can go away for an hour or two in this new place and come back again. Ironically, if you don’t leave your kids with anyone else for six months, you might be setting the stage for major separation anxiety issues when you do want to start spending time apart.

And, on that note, it’s time for me to go pick up the kids from their playtime.

I’d love to hear about your experiences and strategies, too.
Help us all learn from each other, and leave your thoughts or stories below!

Don’t Shun the Small Things

SmallBlue

Often in community development work we focus on the big things – the massive ideas that will transform the local economy, the construction of classrooms or strategies for improving local human rights. The challenges are not small, so our work efforts expand to meet the needs – we make our best, biggest attempt, anyways.

Today I was thinking of the small things.

We started a school last year. It took the better part of the year to secure the land, design and build the school, decide on curriculum and recruit teachers. I got to make one small decision – the color of school uniforms. Most of the students in Burundi wear khaki uniforms, but technically olive green and blue are also acceptable options. Khaki – the color of the dry dirt that covers the hills of this community and a drab green were immediately ruled out. I wanted bright blue for these boys and girls, vibrant and saturated with life.

Bright blue uniforms for kids with bright futures. It’s a small decision, but not insignificant.

SmallClassroom

My husband also decided this summer to make a small addition to the school grounds. He hired a friend to make a swing set for the kids. He wanted the kids to be able to swing and slide during recess and reclaim some childhood joy. A small choice really, but these smiles say otherwise.

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Over two years ago we opened a bank in the capital city of Bujumbura, a hybrid of a microfinance program and community bank model. This year we responded to the growth by building two new branches, one in a rural community and the other in a hard-hit urban neighborhood. My husband made a decision early on – these buildings would look beautiful.

He decided that the signature feature of both buildings would be stonework, something that cost a bit more but also communicated much more. He believed that the unbanked people of these neighborhoods deserved a bank they could be proud to enter. He wanted them to know, just from looking at the building, that this was a place they would be valued and well served.

This week we had a grand opening… and it seems the community got the message. Stonework is a small aesthetic choice, but it says loudly what is in our heart for these families.

SmallKamenge

This past summer we celebrated the five-year anniversary for our first community development project in the green mountains of Matara. We thought it would be a great idea to do professional portraits of the men and women of this community to mark this landmark occasion. This is not something that is part of community development protocols or best practices – studio shots. But we thought it would be fun.

It turned out to be profoundly significant for these men and women. Their posture changed and smiles reached across their faces as they saw their images through the eyes of the camera lens. This small photo shoot conveyed such dignity to our friends. You can see this small thing mattered…

FOHLeonieFOHFrancois

 

 

FOHWoman

I just want to remind my fellow practitioners out there – don’t ignore the importance of the smaller things. Choices about beauty and bright color communicate value and worth. Choices about swing sets and photo shoots bring back some humanity to young and old alike. The simple and small kindnesses we extend to one another always matter. Let’s not shun the smaller things.

I believe that small things, small as mustard seeds, can bring large dividends beyond our wildest imagination.

 

Do you tend to focus on the big picture or the small details?

How do you balance the big and small matters in a large scale project?

What are small things that have made a massive impact in your own life?

*****

Kelley Nikondeha | community development practitioner in Burundi

Twitter | @knikondeha           Blog |  www.kelleynikondeha.com

 

It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, So Make Sure You’re a Part of One

Some of you are packing your bags, and with that, packing up a life overseas. There is so much that goes into this – from the practical, like tickets and packing, to the reflecting and the goodbyes. Today we hear from a blogger/writer Becca Garber who has been overseas with the military. As she packs up her bags she lets us get a glimpse into her life and raising small children overseas. You can read more about Becca at the end of the post. 

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I live in a little town in Sicily, Italy, because my husband is stationed here with the U.S. military. There are about 5,000 Americans here, and most are here for about three years. You would think that a military base overseas would be a close-knit community, and for many individuals it is exactly that.

However, one of the confessions I hear most often from friends and acquaintances is that they – or someone they know – feel very isolated. The list of reasons for their isolation is as varied and complicated as they individual. They miss the community they left, they didn’t chose to move here, or they feel like they are living in a fishbowl in base housing. For those of us that live in the surrounding Sicilian towns, we face further barriers because of language and cultural barriers with our neighbors and a lack of public community spaces.

Becoming comfortable with an isolated, insulated life is not how we were meant to live. I believe strongly that we should live in community, that we should go outside frequently, that we should know our neighbors, that we should welcome them into our homes (a lot! all the time! standing invitation!), that we should cook for them, that we should accept their food, that we should be open and nonjudgmental and communicative and truthful even if we don’t like them.

Even if we can’t speak their language.

The person I’m aspiring to emulate in all of this is, of course, Jesus, who hung out with everyone (saints and sinners) everywhere (temples and wells, open fields and street corners). He came to love and live with people, and I think we are hardwired as humans to need and love and crave human interaction, support, and community.

If you feel isolated, if you want to live in community, the only person who is going to change that is you.

When my young family and I moved to Sicily three years ago, we were warmly welcomed into a wonderful community of Christians, and that helped us to turn around and return the favor to other newcomers. Here are a few things I am glad we did to build our community and avoid isolation in Sicily. (And then I’ll share some things I wish I’d done.)

Things I am glad we did

  • We invited people into our home regularly for meals, Bible study, game nights, book club, play dates, birthday parties, holidays, and anything we could think of. As a general goal, we had someone in our home at least once a week for at least one of these reasons. People love to see inside other people’s homes. People don’t mind the scattered toys and dirty floors. If they do, they are probably learning — just like I am — to get over it and to enjoy the real, honest person who was brave enough to invite them in.
  • We attended religious services (in our case, the base chapel) regularly, even though we didn’t always like it. If we were in town, we went to chapel, even with visitors. What we didn’t like — the music, the nursery — we tried to quietly contribute to and improve, at least for a season.
  • I got very involved in a women’s Bible study; that became “my thing.” Maybe because they offered free childcare? I’m not ashamed to admit it! Either way, those women became my best friends during our time overseas.
  • We vacationed with another family. The first time, they invited us to join them on a trip to northern Italy; the second time we invited them to rent a house on the beach with us. Both of these trips were messy at times, but ultimately so much more fun than going by ourselves.
  • I met up at the market each week with a friend. We had a standing agreement to buy our vegetables together at 9am on Wednesdays. This kept us both accountable to go to the market in our town, a key part of Sicilian life.
  • I invited other moms to go on adventures with me for the day, like to a nearby town, or to ride a tour train with our kids. Or to go on a hike with their dog if they don’t have kids!
  • I invited myself over. A LOT.

Things I wish we’d done 

  • I wish I had gotten my kids involved in the local culture in some way (preschool, sports, even a regular Italian babysitter). That contact is more for me than for my children, because they will be too young to remember any Italian or maybe anything about Sicily. But those contacts with Italy would have helped me so much. I would have had more Italian acquaintances, and I might even have had some real Italian friends. I would also have learned more about holidays, family structure, and food.
  • I wish I had taken Italian lessons. I got books but barely studied them. I knew I needed to just bite the bullet, spend the money, and get a tutor for a few months to launch my understanding. But I never did.
  • I wish we had sought counseling when we needed it for our marriage or our parenting. There were resources through our church, but we never took advantage of them. Sometimes you just need an outside perspective.
  • Lastly and most importantly, I wish I had invited people over sooner, not just after I got to know them pretty well. The best place to get to know someone is usually over a meal, even if the meal is peanut butter and jelly with both of your kids in a messy kitchen.

Think about the place where you live right now. What will you regret not doing after you leave? What were your expectations when you arrived? How can you make them happen?

Parenting and marriage are hard work, especially so far from home. You need people and you were designed for community.

Read more on Becca’s blog, where she writes about living in the shadow of a Sicilian medieval castle with her husband (a veterinarian in the military) and two young children. Becca loves living in Italy, reading with her children, blood oranges, bluegrass concerts, ICU nursing, knitting, and that all-too-brief period of time every night between her kids’ bedtime and her own.   One day she hopes to write a novel, live on a farm, work as a nurse in another culture, and maybe – if she’s really brave – have more kids.

This post originally appeared in Becca’s personal blog and has been adapted for ALOS. Picture credit http://beccagarber.com/

 

 

Let Me Make Your Kid a Buddhist

In true A Life Overseas fashion, we are marking this our 200th post (!!!) with a difficult conversation about the ethics involved in working with children overseas. As always, thanks for making this place an open space to hash out the realities of this living-and-working-internationally-thing. We’re grateful for your insights, experience, and grace, and we’re hopeful about what the next 200 posts will bring. 

Imagine this.

Your family is devoutly Christian. Not only are you Christian in honest-to-goodness-soul-belief, but your entire culture leans that way.  The founding fathers, the churches on every street corner, the preachers on television. This is America– one nation under God and all that.

Christianity is in your blood. 

But, there’s a problem- you are really, really, really poor. For some reason (in this analogy, stay with with me here) free public education or welfare programs are not available, and you can’t afford to send your kids to school, can barely provide the next meal. You have three little ones under eight years old and your husband walked out two years ago. Your floor is dirt and your debt is high. You live in a state of clawing-desperation.

But what if, what if.

A Buddhist monastery moved into the city beside yours, a few miles from your house. What if the monks knocked on your door one day, when the baby was crying because her belly was empty for too long, and offered free schooling and housing for your older two children. They seemed kind and attentive, and the word free was dropped at least 15 times throughout the conversation. It is the opportunity of a lifetime–

Of their lifetimes.

And so you take it. You send your two Christian children to a Buddhist school, and you thank Jesus for the gift of an education and two meals a day and actual beds for your little ones to sleep in at night. 

******

But how’s a six year old girl to resist Buddhism while living in a monastery? And why should she? The monks give her and her brother sweets and the occasional toy from foreigners who visit in loud groups. The children get a steady dose of indoctrination and hot meals, temple visits and spelling tests.

And, no surprise, they come back to you for their first visit six months later, making offerings and burning incense, asking for luck and claiming reincarnation, Buddhist through-and-through.

You are disappointed, angered even. You’ve been around long enough to know that kids will believe about anything grown-ups tell them. But what other choice do you have? A free education might be worth Buddhist children.

“At least they won’t starve,” you tell yourself.

******

And we shrug a simple story like this off, but I wonder if this is the position we put parents and children in too often in pursuit sharing the gospel? And while we’ve had conversations here about offering humanitarian aid and it’s relationship to missions, we haven’t yet talked about the ethics of engaging with children in another culture– particularly without parental authority present.

And, yes, I spent a decade in church ministry, and I always heard about the “opportunity” for children to accept Christ. “Like wet clay set out to dry, the older a person gets the harder it is to change their minds,” a children’s pastor told me once. It’s a philosophy that has made me donate specifically to kids’ ministries in the past. I get the logic.

But let’s be honest here– what are the moral ethics involved in preaching, converting, discipling, proselytizing children?

Don’t we have an obligation to their home culture (which is often closely linked with a religion) to tread carefully? Don’t we have a responsibility to their humanity to avoid using gifts to gain loyalty and to their parents to respectfully engage them in the information their kids are receiving?

I mean, stick my poor kid in a free school and demand (very nicely) through lessons and social pressure and altar calls that she become Buddhist, and well, I’m going to be left feeling both angered and powerless.

But the monks may never know it– a free education is a free education, after all.

 

– Laura Parker, Co-Founder/Editor, Former Aid Worker in SE Asia

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So let’s talk.  What guidelines/principles do you have when working with children in another culture?  How have you seen it done well/done poorly? Is it fair to give a gospel presentation without parental consent? And what if the parents aren’t involved or aren’t around? Thoughts? 

 

A Cautionary Tale: Expats & Expets (What not to do)

This month I’m writing in the air while I fly away from my island home. My feet will touch the ground in five cities today before I arrive at my final destination. Leaving the kids and the work behind, of course my mind is filled with all sorts of ‘A Life Overseas’ things, but I cannot bring myself to write about anything serious. Instead I’ve chosen a completely inconsequential topic for your Monday.

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~          ~          ~

I think we are all familiar with the term “expat”.  By dictionary definition, an expat(riate) is “a person who lives outside of their native country.”

Today I’m discussing the lesser known term, ‘expets’.

An expet is a pet that lives under the care and protection of a family/couple/individual that carry a passport from one country, but live with, enjoy, and raise their pet in a different country. An expet can be acquired in the passport OR host country. (TCP – Third Culture Pet – and all the challenges apply here as well.)

I will stop here to say, the animal haters need not read any further.  This post isn’t for you.  I, too, was a hater until recently. I understand you, even if I can no longer support you or your shriveled up little heart.

Owning a pet simply for the sake of owning a pet is a thing in many parts of the world.  Owning a pet is NOT a thing in many parts of the world.  I submit to you that if you owned a pet, once you move to a new land where pets are not so common, you may really miss owning a pet.

Most expats with an expet have a dilemma when it comes time to travel to fundraise, rest, or take care of any other personal business.

It feels a little bit inconsiderate to ask a friend to take our pets for many weeks or a number of months.  These friends have their own pets and are staying behind to carry an extra workload, that you leave  them, as it is.  On the flip side, it feels weird to travel with our expets.  How exactly does one justify flying a dog through the air?

(Just wait, I will tell you.)

Left without any great options; we choose the lesser evil.

~            ~            ~

Many years back, our youngest daughter was due to be born at the same time our first-born daughter was heading to the USA to begin university.  Because two such major life-events were happening in the same time period, we planned a four-month furlough.

The kids’ masterful and spectacularly executed campaign began early in the furlough planning.

“Mom, we cannot leave Peanut here. Haitian culture doesn’t ‘do’ pets. Nobody will feed her or take care of her. She might get sick or die while we are away.”

That sounded dramatic, but not impossible.

“You guys, she will be okay. We’ll ask a few people to watch her in case one of them forgets – there will be a back-up plan.”

It was easy to tell they’d done some role-playing; the college bound child was more than ready for our response. “Mom and Dad, this is the last time I will live with Peanut in Haiti, I am already leaving my Haiti home. Having Peanut with us would help me with the transition time.”

(Enter unhealthy and debilitating parental guilt.)

And so began the dumbest decision  – that created a domino effect of dumb decisions that we have yet to put to an end when it comes to our expets.

It was late August in Haiti. The average temperature is 100 degrees by noon.  In order to check a dog on a commercial flight the forecasted temperature on both ends and any stops during the itinerary must not be warmer than 85 degrees.

Paralyzed by the parental guilt mentioned above, we looked for plan B.

We arranged for our two oldest girls to fly on a private missionary mail service plane with the dog to Florida.  Once in Florida the temperatures didn’t allow a commercial flight to our destination.  That obstacle was also taken in stride; I would fly commercial to Florida and rent a mini-van.  So began the cross-country trek toward Minnesota.  A very pregnant mom, five kids, and a giant slobbering expet named Peanut. My better half remained in Haiti, where he probably felt quite smug watching this all unfold.

~          ~           ~

Soon after my husband joined us, we welcomed our last daughter to the world the same week we bought bedding for our first to take to her dorm room.  It was a wild time in our lives. Three months of utter chaos that included meningitis, MRSA, scabies, a C-Section, multiple stomach flus, losing our house-renter and therefore putting a house on the market, strained relationships, postpartum hormones, moving a kid to College and packing up a large tribe to return to Haiti with the frazzled nerves and sleep deprivation caused by all of the aforementioned items.

Good news though. Our Haitian born Mastiff, Peanut, was introduced to snow and ice that Christmas. That is super important, obviously.

The time came to head home to the Caribbean. Troy found out that flights out of MSP when it was too cold would not allow a dog to be checked. Minnesota temperatures, do you follow them?  It is utter insanity.  In our defense, it was hard to think ahead.  Mostly because we don’t do that.  Who knew in late August in Haiti that a flight in early January out of Minnesota would be cold?  Certainly not us.

We booked flights for Troy and five of the kids. I was to stay back with the newborn and get our oldest moved into her dorm before returning to Haiti a week later. We pleaded with the arctic weather systems, Mother Nature, God, and anyone that seemed slightly powerful  – to please make the day that Troy and the kids left Minneapolis be a warmish one. Peanut needed to go home to Haiti.

(See my shocked face.)  You guessed it, the dog could not return on the flight we booked. It just so happened to be the coldest day yet that winter.  I waved goodbye from the truck as I turned to look at my newborn and my 100-pound Mastiff.  The kids yelled, “Bye Mom, we can’t wait to see Peanut when she gets home… Oh, and you!”

A  NEW plan was hatched. My Dad would drive Peanut to Texas. I would fly with the oldest and the newborn to Texas to get settled in at University and sob my eyes out and all that.  If the dog cannot fly out of Minnesota, we will drive the dog to a different city that has more favorable temperatures for dog-flights.

The day my Dad pulled up to the hotel  (photo above, dog did some of the driving) just next door to the Baylor University campus, it finally hit me.

We brought that dog to the USA because we are idiots, not because we are such loving and considerate parents.

Sneaking a Mastiff into a hotel is not a thing.  That, my friends, is a fact.

After a couple of days I hugged my oldest goodbye in the middle of campus, strapped the car seat tightly in its rear facing position and asked the dog to poop before we headed toward DFW area.  I cried the entire 90-mile drive.  I’d like to say it was grief of leaving my daughter behind. Truth-be-told, it was mainly dread over returning a rental car, getting the dog and her enormous kennel, the baby with stroller and car seat, and lots of luggage in and out of a shuttle and  hotel and then out of the hotel and into the airport at an hour we all abhor.

4am arrived. The dog, the baby, the luggage – all painstakingly loaded into a hotel van while sharply dressed business women and men looked at their watches and gave me the side-eye.  What? You don’t travel like this?  Whatever man, you don’t know my life.

With nursing baby, frightened dog, and precisely weighed fifty-two pound bags ready to go, I waited in line for my turn to greet some of the world’s most helpful and kind customer service agents.

“All of that is yours?”  – was the greeting that morning. I answered apologetically and bounced up and down to keep the baby happy. The agent began our check-in and placing our bags on the scale.  “All your bags are two pounds over.”

I needed a friend so I pretended not to know that. “Oh dear, I’m SO sorry. Lots of stuff to get home”, Ha ha ha light frivolous laughter – we are so happy to be here together at this counter this morning ha ha ha. Good times.

The agent wasn’t amused.  She looked at the giant dog in the kennel behind me and asked to see the papers.  I proudly produced them.  Her brow furrowed as she looked down at them.  Lydia fussed in my arms, Peanut whined in her kennel. The entire American Airlines waiting area looked on with disdain as the agent pounded on her keyboard looking up the reasons I should perish.

“Your veterinarian letter is supposed to be within seven days and it is dated 9 days ago.”

I wish there had been a record button inside my head at that moment. The gymnastics happening and the panic that ensued was life altering.  I explained that I was car-less, home less, friend-less.  I explained that what I did have was a dog and a newborn baby and a bunch of kids in Haiti waiting on me.  She didn’t budge.

I called both my Father and Mother, who were many hours away. “Good Morning, sorry to wake you – PRAY FOR ME and find a vet that will call me right away.”  Without context and half asleep, you can understand how confusing that was.

I explained to the agent that Haiti would never even ask to see my dumb Veterinarian letter, it was a formality and if they arrested me in Haiti I would be okay with that.  I mean really, how long can they hold a lactating half-crazed American woman, anyway? I begged her not to make rule enforcement her job. I assured her that I would take the risk and never blame her if it backfired.

She dug in. I dug in.  It wasn’t hard to cry.  So I did that.  For ten or fifteen minutes we waited one another out.  I pointed out that I had no way to move all the stuff and the kid and the kenneled up dog so she’d have to look at my sorry face all the live long day if she didn’t let us go. I planned my sit-in.

A supervisor was called.  The negotiations began all over again. The baby started wailing due to feeling the tension.

In the end it was Lydia’s loud crying, my insistence that nobody in Haiti would care, and my Mom’s prayers that seemed to set us free with boarding passes in hand.  The dog was taken by someone to go to the special loading area for dogs that don’t understand the rules.

As expected, in Haiti, the letter for the dog was accepted – no questions asked – and for a few moments I was everyone’s hero.

This brings me to the end of my tale. You might think, what’s the point, Tara?

The point is: don’t be stupid.

Let your friends take care of your pets. They’ll live.

 What about you?  Do you travel across international borders with your pet?

 Or  leave your pet behind?  If you have children, has the pet thing been complicated?

I wish I could tell you the questionable decisions surrounding TCPs stopped with Peanut.  Nope. Two other expets have joined the family. Meet Hazelnut and Chestnut, one of them just recently traveled by plane with us with a properly dated vet letter that nobody ever saw. He left a little parting gift at DFW gate A27.

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Tara Livesay works and lives in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
blog: livesayhaiti.com | twitter (sharing with her better half): @troylivesay

on launching kids from great distances

photo“You’ve given her roots, now give her wings.”

That is what they all say.

“God loves her more than you, trust Him with her.”

That is what the spiritual and wise will advise.

As mothers and fathers choosing to live and work far from our passport countries and most of the institutions of higher learning, the day of sending a child out of the nest to college can feel even more daunting for us.

I think we can all agree, it starts out quite daunting enough.

While those words of advice can sound cliché, we need the people who remind us that this is the nature of the beast. We don’t have these children in order to keep them under our roofs and thumbs for a lifetime. We can usually be rational enough to agree that we raise our children fully intending to launch them; we want to produce self-sustaining, responsible, grownup-ish  individuals.

When I am not so rational I believe I have been tricked, like someone sped up time and I wasn’t given my full 18 year allotment. In those irrational moments I think about destroying the passport, bolting the doors, refusing to buy an airline ticket, sobbing until my blood vessels burst, or thrashing on the ground with my arms gripping her ankles like a vice.  I’ve heard things like this happen from time to time. (Ahem.)

In my own upbringing I was given two “free backs”.  That to say, the first two launch missions were aborted and I returned tail between my legs, begging for mercy and access to Mom and Dad’s refrigerator.  It was the third try that finally stuck, when I was 25 years old.

I remember my parents not seeming to terribly annoyed at having me back.  In many ways they seemed happy to have me.  As we are launching our second almost fully functional adult right now, I am understanding the patience my parents exhibited upon my return(s).  Our kids grow up too quickly, and it never feels very comfortable to transition to the next phase. Change is hard. Letting go is harder. Drastically changing our long-held role, a role that can be a part of our very identity, is difficult albeit necessary.

Many years ago when my daughter was little, I was explaining to her that my new job required me to travel and I’d be gone more often.  She listened without comment. I finally said, “Change is really hard, honey.”  She thought about that a moment and said, “I agree. I hate change.  I like dollars.”  Even though our conversation never connected in any meaningful way, we found agreement.

Change stinks. 

This stuff is painful.  The idea that I will be 3,000 miles away without any knowledge of her comings and goings strikes panic in my Momma heart. It seems I’ve been telling myself that knowing where she is all the time – is what keeps her safe.  Now, I know that is ridiculous, but it is true nonetheless.   I thought it might get easier with the second child. My husband and I are finding it just as daunting the second time around.

In a letter I wrote to her earlier this year, I said,

“When they hand you a baby after you have performed miraculous feats of superhuman proportions to bring that little person into the world, they don’t tell you about what is coming; the greater pain of letting them go. They don’t tell you that those hours and hours of contractions and pushing are just the warm-up, eighteen years early, for the real pain.”

Our job as parents doesn’t end here, but it changes drastically.  We hope to take the advice of our friends and give our girl wings as we look to God, who loves her even more than we do, and trust Him with her future and ours.

~           ~           ~

For those of you that have launched your children from the mission field, what things have you found to be helpful, especially in the first year or two?  

Do you think being in a different country than your child makes the transition more difficult?

 

Tara Livesay  works in Port-au-Prince, Haiti with Heartline Ministries.

blog:  livesayhaiti.com  |  twitter (sharing with her better half): @troylivesay