My husband and I brought our four kids home from Africa at the ages of 9 to 15. They all walked straight into school in a country that was supposed to feel like home.
I remember thinking we’d survived the hard part: the original move, the goodbyes, the adjusting to a new culture, the years of figuring out how to raise kids between worlds. Coming home was supposed to be simple. We knew the language, the grocery stores, and we knew in theory how things worked.
Except we didn’t. Not really. Not anymore.
What I didn’t expect was how differently each of us would carry it. My husband and I were grieving different things, on different timelines, and neither of us really had the words for what we were feeling. So we didn’t say much of anything.
My kids were grieving too, but their losses were quieter and harder to name: a best friend, a bedroom, a favorite place to eat, the people who knew them without explanation. They were grieving a version of themselves that only existed in that other place.
Nobody handed us a way to talk about any of it. We were just supposed to be home now, and glad about it.
Here’s what I’ve learned since we walked this journey called re-entry: It doesn’t affect just one person in the family. It affects the whole family system.
A husband and wife can go through the exact same move and land in completely different emotional places. One spouse might be relieved to be home, while the other might be quietly mourning a life and identity that no longer fits anywhere.
Kids grieve losses in ways that don’t always look like grief. Instead, it can show up as a change in mood, withdrawal, anger, anxiety, or a child who suddenly seems harder to reach. And since our Third Culture Kids carry something even more layered — a sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere at once — they may have a home that isn’t quite a place anymore.
Over time we noticed that different seasons of the re-entry journey required different things from us.
For example, when we left, we tried to make sure that our kids said their goodbyes well. We also gave each of them one trunk to fill with personal things to take back. Some of what they packed surprised us. There were things we thought they might want to bring back but didn’t. There were other things they brought back from our host culture that we didn’t expect. I had to figure out what each of them needed there but not here. Then the opposite, here but not there.
When we landed in our home culture, our first stop was my parents’ house, which was fun for the kids and a safe place to land. But then we had to figure out how to buy a house with no credit, and rice and beans did not taste the same.
We went through another phase that I was not expecting. A phase where it felt like we were wandering in the desert. Later, I learned that it was grief, and we found places we really needed to forgive each other, and we even found places we needed to forgive ourselves. This was necessary for us to thrive as we re-engaged with our new normal.
I know that this is our story, and your story is different. But there will probably be similarities to the seasons.
At Re-entry Experts, we have found that the families we serve aren’t usually lacking love or effort. They’re usually lacking a shared language. They need a structure, and they need to have an opportunity to sit down together and actually talk about what’s happening instead of everyone processing it alone in their own corner of the house.
That’s the gap we hope the Family Companion Workbook can fill. This workbook isn’t a book you read once and put on a shelf. It’s a workbook you can pick up while you’re preparing to return and walking through the first six months (Part 1). Or you can open Part 2 when, a few months or years later, something new surfaces.
The important thing is that you walk through it together as a family, either around the kitchen table, at bedtime, or wherever your family naturally gathers. You will create your re-entry story as you walk with a family in the workbook who has walked this road. You’ll also be given words, space, and activities to help your family process what you’re experiencing. You’ll find prompts for the conversations that are hardest to start on your own, with questions designed for different age ranges. For example:
- Question for 5-8-year-olds: What was your favorite part?
- Question for 9-12-year-olds: What did you leave behind that no one else seems to notice?
- Question for 13-17-year-olds: What does home even mean to you right now?
We have seen that sometimes the hardest part isn’t knowing that something is wrong. It’s knowing how to talk about it. This resource was built this way because as someone who lived it, and as someone who has now spent hundreds of hours with families in the middle of it, I’ve seen what happens when families finally have words for what they’ve been carrying.
Re-entry doesn’t heal through willpower or simply waiting it out. It heals through being known. Through someone naming the thing you didn’t have words for. Through realizing you’re not the only one in your house who feels out of place. That’s also why this workbook doesn’t stand alone. It’s the anchor for something bigger: our new monthly Family Re-entry Conversations. These small groups let you talk with others who are in the same season as you. Because sometimes what a family needs most is to realize we’re not the only ones.
If your family is in this season, come join us. We’d love to walk with you.
And if you’re in the member care space, we have something for you too.
Our Family Debriefing Program gives you a framework to walk alongside families through a 5-day, 3-day, or 1-day debrief. You can use it with a single family or with multiple families, creating intentional space for them to process what they’ve experienced, name what they’re carrying, and begin to move forward together.
Because after ten years of walking with families through re-entry, this is what I know: Families don’t need to be told to just be grateful they’re home. They need someone to help them make sense of what home means now.
That’s what we want to offer.
Find the Family Companion here.
Sign up for Family Re-entry Conversations here.
Access the digital Family Debriefing Program here.
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Shonna M. Ingram, PhD, is the founder and director of Re-entry Experts, a training and resource organization dedicated to helping families and professionals navigate the complexities of re-entry. Drawing from her research, lived experience, and years of walking alongside globally mobile families, Shonna uses her writing and time to advocate for better re-entry care in an increasingly global world. You can find out more at her Substack and re-entryexperts.com, as well as Facebook and Instagram.
Andrea Sears is co-founder of the ministry giveDIGNITY, which works in the marginalized community of La Carpio in San Jose, Costa Rica. The ministry focuses on Christ-centered community development initiatives in education, vocation, and violence prevention. Her family has been in Costa Rica for 8 years, and served as the Missionaries in Residence at John Brown University during the 2017-2018 year while on furlough.
