Tag: MK

Neurodiversity in the World of TCKs

You might be wondering why addressing neurodivergence in the context of ministry is an important endeavor. I get it — I’ve wondered too! The best answer I can offer is this: because neurodivergent children and adults live among us. Because they are cherished by God and worthy of our investment of time and effort. And because ignorance is not bliss — it can fracture God’s Kingdom with misunderstandings, conflict, and the withholding of empathy.

If only because it grows us into loving better and more thoughtfully, I believe that learning more about the humans around us is a spiritual practice and God-given privilege. 

NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORLD OF TCKs

There is a particular kind of exhaustion many globally mobile families experience. The kind that feels linked—sometimes in obscure ways—to that third airport security line, that calendar-busting conference, that language-learning plateau, that brutal goodbye to friends we may not see again, that moment your child dissolves into tears because the cereal tastes different in this country, or that weather pattern that sucks the life out of everyday activities.

In the cross-cultural community, we tend to tell ourselves that it’s transition stress. Culture shock. Jet lag. Grief. And often, it is—or a combination of them all.

But there can also be something more complex happening beneath the surface. Something quieter, more deeply wired into the way a child experiences the world—or, in the case of MKs, multiple worlds.

What is neurodivergence?

In recent years, conversations around neurodiversity have become far more common. Current estimates suggest that between 15% and 20% of the population may be neurodivergent, so it’s no wonder that efforts to deepen our understanding are expanding.

At its simplest, neurodivergence means that a brain functions differently from what is considered usual or “typical.” Neurodiversity embraces the idea that everybody’s brain works uniquely and that neurodivergence is a normal variation.

ADHD, autism, OCD, dyslexia, sensory processing differences, dyscalculia, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological differences can all fall under this broad umbrella. Neurodivergence can show up in countless ways—from sensory overwhelm and learning differences to intense creativity, diminished executive function, or information processing that differs from that of brains considered more “typical.”

The Strengths of Neurodivergence

Though neurological differences were formerly viewed simply as deficits, researchers and clinicians now understand neurodivergence as part of the natural variation of human brains—producing unique strengths as well as unique challenges.

It’s important to remember that these same TCKs wrestling with layers of difference often possess extraordinary gifts.

In her article At the Intersection: Navigating Neurodivergence and Third Culture Kids, Dr. Kristen Williamson highlights the creativity, innovation, empathy, deep focus, and problem-solving abilities that frequently accompany neurodivergence. The child who notices details everyone else misses. The teenager who learns languages through patterns and rhythms. The young adult whose emotional sensitivity allows them to connect deeply across cultures.

Sometimes the very wiring that makes life more complicated also allows a child to experience beauty, excel academically, analyze complex data, and respond with empathy more naturally than the rest of us do.

The Relief of Diagnosis

Of the adult TCKs interviewed for this article and its accompanying video, most weren’t diagnosed until adulthood. Sometimes diagnosis came after burnout. After reentry. After struggles in higher education. Or after years of wondering why ordinary life seemed to require extraordinary effort.

For many neurodivergent people and their families, diagnosis itself is not the devastating moment they feared. Often, it brings relief—because there is finally language for their strengths and challenges. There is an explanation for why transitions feel catastrophic rather than merely difficult. Why noise feels physically painful. Why social interaction requires marathon-level energy. Why someone can appear perfectly composed in public and completely unravel at home.

Neurodivergence in Cross-Cultural Spaces

For Third Culture Kids, neurodivergence can create a particularly layered experience because so much of TCK life already requires constant adaptation. New schools. New languages. New social rules. New expectations. New relationships. New losses.

Indian writer and advocate Nanyadiri, who is autistic and has ADHD (AuDHD), describes the autistic TCK life as “a difference inside a difference.” The phrase captures something globally mobile families recognize in their children with neurodivergence: some are not merely learning to adapt across cultures; they are trying to navigate a world that may already have been unpredictable, confusing, or painfully loud—and now it is exponentially more overwhelming.

Transition is one of the greatest challenges for neurodivergent TCKs. Airports. Temporary housing. Shifting routines. New foods. Unfamiliar smells. Different classroom expectations. New cultural customs. All the unpredictability that globally mobile families eventually normalize can feel deeply dysregulating.

For some children, the adventure of it all feels exhilarating. But for others, it might feel more like being forced to stand in the chaos of Times Square at rush hour—with strangers yelling questions, street vendors selling unfamiliar things, friends pushing new foods at their faces, and a thunderous storm assailing them with rain and wind—all while realizing that everything familiar (people, places, routines, their own bed) is no longer within reach.

Now imagine trying to manage that 24/7—without protective filters, escape routes, or loved ones who understand how exhausting it is.

The Tangled Strands of TCKness and Neurodivergence

The challenges don’t end with transition. For those who love TCKs with autism, OCD, ADHD, and other forms of neurodivergence, distinguishing brain differences from cross-cultural traits can be difficult.

The impact of neurodivergence, trauma, and chronic stress can sometimes look remarkably similar. Frequent moves, unresolved grief, political instability, educational disruption, repeated upheaval, and abuse can all affect a child’s nervous system. Meanwhile, globally mobile life itself already looks unconventional.

A child who struggles socially may be assumed to be adjusting to a new culture. A child overwhelmed in crowds may be labeled sensitive. Executive-functioning difficulties may be blamed on transition stress rather than recognized as part of ADHD or autism.

Jenilee Goodwin, a fellow A Life Overseas writer, notes in How to Notice Neurodiversity in Third Culture Kids that neurodivergent TCKs often slip under the radar for precisely this reason. Sometimes what we’re seeing really is TCK struggle. Sometimes it is an expression of an underlying brain difference. Quite frequently, it is a combination of both.

This is why untangling the strands of TCKness and neurodivergence is so complicated. It takes time, learning, wisdom, and often an investment of effort and funds in professional evaluation. Understanding the “why” behind a child’s behavior is essential to providing support that addresses their actual needs rather than applying strategies that may exacerbate their struggles.

Knowing more can change the entire conversation from frustration to compassion—and then to appropriate action.

The Realities of Masking

Another reason neurodivergence gets missed in cross-cultural communities is that so many children become exceptionally good at masking. Especially TCKs. Especially bright, capable, adaptable children who are praised for maturity and flexibility.

Girls, in particular, are often missed because their struggles don’t match traditional stereotypes of neurodivergence. Rather than appearing disruptive or hyperactive, many become experts at people-pleasing, perfectionism, emotional caretaking, or quiet overachievement. They may look socially successful while privately rehearsing conversations, analyzing interactions, and becoming chronically exhausted from trying to make coping appear effortless.

In missionary and ministry environments, children who mask well may be celebrated as adaptable, mature, helpful, and selfless while carrying extraordinary levels of internal stress.

And boys can mask too—especially thoughtful, sensitive boys who learn early that emotional overwhelm or social confusion feels unsafe to reveal. But because many people still picture neurodivergence primarily as a loud little boy bouncing off classroom walls, quieter presentations are frequently overlooked altogether.  

So many neurodivergent TCKs are working tirelessly behind the scenes to appear “fine.” They study social expectations. They rehearse conversations. They observe peers and imitate what seems socially acceptable. They hold themselves together all day and then collapse emotionally once they reach home.

Psychologist Laura Mannucci captures this beautifully in Belonging in Translation: Autism, ADHD, and the Hidden Labor of Adapting Across Cultures: “When you have learned to mirror others to belong, the authentic self becomes hard to locate.”

The immense mental effort required to constantly decode cultural expectations while also navigating neurodivergence becomes, as Mannucci describes it, “an ongoing negotiation between worlds.” For many TCKs, that hidden hypervigilance becomes a way of life—and an exhausting drain on their energy.

What Neurodivergent TCKs Need from All of Us

According to the TCKs I interviewed, one of the gentlest shifts parents can make is moving from disciplining difference to approaching it with curiosity. Instead of asking, “Why is my child overreacting?” ask, “What might this situation feel like inside my child’s nervous system? What could be the reason for that?” Instead of rewarding the masking that allows children to appear more “typical,” invest time, effort, and funding into the kind of research and testing that might uncover liberating answers.

And then extend love—because there are far too many neurodivergent TCKs who believe their brain difference is failure, weakness, or even sin. We as a community need to speak—and be—the antidote to those destructive lies.

So what can we actually do?

Throughout ministry life, small changes can foster stability and safety: limiting social commitments, building in respite, creating quiet spaces and predictable routines, reducing toxic stress where possible, educating siblings and community members, and supporting activities that allow for regulation and expression—art, movement, writing, creating, organizing, inventing, or analyzing.

Even adjusting family menus to accommodate intolerable textures and tastes can matter. For some autistic children, this isn’t simply a food preference; it is a visceral inability to get past the texture or taste.

Jenilee Goodwin encourages families in transition to build predictability wherever possible: visual schedules, familiar foods, comfort objects, advance warning before changes, recovery time after overstimulation, and small rituals carried from country to country.

These things may sound insignificant to people who function more typically, but to a neurodivergent child, they can feel like safety in the swirling center of threatening chaos.

Parents may also need to reevaluate expectations around pace and productivity. Many neurodivergent TCKs can technically endure crowded schedules, rapid travel, stimulating ministry environments, and constant social interaction—while paying an invisible emotional cost.

A child may be coping remarkably well on the outside while quietly unraveling internally. 

But there’s a huge difference between surviving and flourishing.

The Beauty in the Difference

Goodwin’s articles emphasize the importance of helping children understand their own brains with dignity and compassion. Neurodivergent children need language that frames their differences not as personal failures, but as part of their unique wiring. Dr. Williamson argues that when neurodivergent TCKs receive understanding and support, many develop exceptional resilience, intercultural awareness, empathy, and creativity.

When I speak with adult TCKs who received a diagnosis about what they wish someone had told them sooner, they point to the crucial importance of parents and loved ones affirming who they are—and rejecting the lies the world and their own inner voice might inflict on them.

Perhaps one of the most hopeful truths emerging from these conversations is that many neurodivergent TCK adults—with affirmation, care, support, and therapy—eventually come to see their differences not merely as obstacles, but as part of the very wiring that shaped their strengths. The sensitivity that once led to overwhelm becomes empathy. Hyper-awareness becomes emotional intelligence. The lifelong practice of observing cultures and decoding people becomes insight and wisdom.

The traits that complicated childhood can become part of what allows these adults to move through the world with unusual compassion, creativity, and depth.

Not despite their wiring—because of it.

And perhaps that is the invitation here—not to pathologize difference, nor to romanticize struggle, but to notice children more carefully. To listen more curiously. To create environments where they do not have to spend their lives pretending to be less sensitive, less intense, less observant, or less themselves in order to belong.

Because some of the children who experience the world most deeply may also be the ones most capable of helping the rest of us see it more clearly.

They are not broken.

They are not burdens.

They are unique, precious, created by God, and so very loved by Him.

 

Further learning:

— This version of the article does not include the profound and fascinating quotes collected from eleven neurodivergent adult TCKs. You can find the full article here.

— My entire three-part series on TCKs and Neurodiversity (including an interview with Jenilee Goodwin, an extended version of this article, and a videoed collection of personal stories from adult TCKs) is here.  

— Additional reading:

Belonging in Translation — Laura Mannucci
Different, Not Less — Chloé Hayden
Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You — Jenara Nerenberg
Driven to Distraction — Hallowell & Ratey
Embracing the Autism Spectrum — Dr. Stephanie Holmes
Lost in Translation: The Social Language Theory of Neurodivergence — Janae Elisabeth
Neurodiversity for Dummies — John Marble, Khushboo Chabria, and Ranga Jayaraman
Uniquely Human — Barry Prizant
Uniquely Us — Dr. Stephanie Holmes
Unmasking Autism — Devon Price

How do I help a missionary kid who is hurting herself?

I sat in an empty classroom at a Christian international school. A tenth-grade girl perched on a desk, head lowered, hair covering her face, heels kicking back and forth.

Her parents were missionaries. Her mother taught at the school to cover tuition. Earlier in the day, another teacher noticed fresh cuts high on her thigh. It wasn’t the first time. 

She said she was okay. She said she’d stop. They didn’t believe her. They knew she needed to talk to someone. She refused to see the guidance counsellor – but said she’d talk to me.

She didn’t look at me as she explained her perspective, trusting me to understand. She didn’t want anyone to worry. She really was okay. She had no intention to actually hurt herself. 

Cutting gave her clarity. It quieted the chaos of her emotions long enough for her to focus on schoolwork. It wasn’t the first time a teenage TCK had told me that.

Missionary Kids and Self-harm

Mental health challenges are common among missionary kids. Naming this does not mean we need to panic – and there is good news. Before we discuss the good news, let’s look at the stats.

According to TCK Training’s 2024 survey of 1,643 TCKs, 83% of missionary kids experienced symptoms of at least one mental health concern during their lifetime. Among Gen Z missionary kids, 79% experienced symptoms during childhood (before age 18).

Self-harm is defined as intentionally causing harm to oneself, whether or not there is suicidal intent. A large portion of self-harm falls under non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), which includes behaviours such as cutting or burning.

A 2019 study spanning 41 countries found that around 22% of children and adolescents globally had engaged in self-harm, with onset most commonly around age 13. Cutting was the most frequent method (Lim et al., 2019).

When we compare this to what missionary kids report, we see:

  • 22% of children globally self-harmed before age 18.
  • 18% of missionary kids overall self-harmed before age 18.
  • 29% of Gen Z missionary kids self-harmed before age 18.

While these are different studies with different parameters, the message is clear: The missionary lifestyle does not provide immunity from self-harm or other mental health challenges.

Effective Prevention of Self-harm

These numbers are sobering, but they are not the end of the story. There are things we can do now to lower the risk of self-harm in our missionary kids.

TCK Training’s research consistently shows that Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) are strongly associated with lower rates of self-harm among TCKs, including missionary kids.

  • Missionary kids with 5-7 PCEs were 59% less likely to self-harm in childhood than those with 0-4.
  • Only 7% of missionary kids with all 7 PCEs self-harmed during childhood.
  • Gen Z missionary kids with all 7 PCEs were 82% less likely to self-harm than those with 0-2 PCEs.

PCEs have a huge impact, but they are not magic nor are they overly complicated. They are just indicators of emotionally safe homes, supportive friendships, and connected communities.

From a TCK’s point of view, the seven PCEs are:

  • I receive emotional support at home (my feelings are heard and accepted).
  • My family stands by me in difficult times.
  • An adult in my home makes me feel safe and protected.
  • There are two non-parent adults in my life who take a genuine interest in me.
  • I enjoy participating in community traditions.
  • I feel supported by friends.
  • I feel a sense of belonging during my teen years.

Each one of these matters. They aren’t difficult, but they require intentionality – especially when global mobility and cross-cultural living is involved. (Learn more about PCEs with this free course on Implementing PCEs.)

Responding to Self-harm

How adults respond to a struggling child matters, both before and after a child discloses. The way we talk about emotions, stress, faith, and struggle teaches children whether we are ‘safe’ people with whom to share their inner struggles. Many young people ‘test’ potential helpers by sharing smaller concerns first. If those are brushed off, the larger problems stay hidden. 

Most TCKs I’ve worked with who self-harmed fell into the non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) category. They knew it wasn’t exactly healthy, but believed it was the least harmful way they knew to cope. That means our first response should not be panic or control, but curiosity. (That’s one of the four Safe Space Responses – access a free course on them here.)

Trying to stop behaviour without understanding why it developed rarely leads to lasting change. Non-judgmental listening allows us to uncover the emotions underneath and opens the door to healthier coping strategies. Next we connect the young person and their family with professional support, a crucial tool for long-term wellbeing. 

That’s what I did in that classroom. I listened. I asked questions. I helped her imagine a life where the stress didn’t pile so high she felt she needed a blade to get through it.

Together, we created a plan: mentoring, regular counselling, and a mediated meeting with the school to reduce academic pressure. Then we shared that plan with her mother.

Anyone Can Learn to Support an MK in Need

For anyone who regularly spends time with missionary kids – whether pastors, teachers, mentors, family friends, and even parents themselves – training matters. You don’t need to become a therapist, but you do need tools. I highly recommend both Youth Mental Health First Aid for TCKs and Suicide Intervention for TCKs.

To go deeper, there is Groundwork for anyone who interacts with TCKs regularly, which includes both the YMHFA and Suicide Intervention certifications, and TCK Crisis Care Training. 

Because missionary kids don’t need us to be perfect. They need us to be prepared when they are ready to reach out.

 

Note: If your family or a family you care about is in crisis, don’t wait. You are not alone, and support is available. Finding a licensed therapist your child feels comfortable with is critical for long-term wellbeing. Here is a great list of TCK-informed therapists you can refer to for assistance. The Season of Crisis Toolbox is also a great starting point for working out how to support your family as a whole while navigating difficult seasons together.

Finally, Proof That Kids Can Thrive While Growing Up Overseas

Last month marked twenty years since I started working with TCKs and globally mobile families. I have always believed that international life is a great experience and that we all gain so much from it — no matter how young (or old) we are.

Yet through the years I have met a lot of young people who experienced a lot of pain during and following their international years. I have spent a lot of time listening to them and their stories, too. I joined TCK Training because I believe so much in the mission of preventive care: that there are practical things we can do to help families thrive through international transitions. 

Now, we have the research to prove it.

Preventive Care That Works

The field of preventive science is relatively new. While research into Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has been going on for nearly 30 years, research into Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) isn’t even 10 years old.

Last year, TCK Training surveyed over 1,600 Adult TCKs about their childhood experiences — both the hard things and the resilience-building factors. In September, we released findings on how both ACEs and PCEs impact long-term wellness for TCKs. The biggest takeaway was that 5-7 PCEs dramatically improve long-term outcomes for TCKs, whether or not they experienced childhood trauma.

There are several different studies measuring different protective factors. We modeled our research after Bethell et al’s 2019 study with seven Positive Childhood Experiences. We asked TCKs seven questions, and each time they answered ‘true’ or ‘mostly true’ they received a score of 1, leading to a total score of 0-7. 

  1. I felt safe/accepted when talking about my feelings with my family.
  2. I felt my family stood by me during difficult times.
  3. An adult in my home made me feel safe and protected.
  4. I felt supported by friends.
  5. I felt a sense of belonging during my high school years (around age 14-18).
  6. I engaged in community traditions I enjoyed. (These might include religious festivals, national holidays, school events, or annual gatherings.)
  7. I always had at least two adults in my life who genuinely cared about me (not including my parents).

The difference in long-term outcomes for TCKs with all seven PCEs vs TCKs with no PCEs was astounding. For example, TCKs with all 7 PCEs were:

  • 63% less likely to be diagnosed with anxiety
  • 72% less likely to abuse alcohol or use illicit drugs
  • 86% less likely to be diagnosed with PTSD
  • 2.1x more likely to say being a TCK was “the best way to grow up”
  • 5.4x more likely to say the TCK life was “wonderful, no regrets”

Yet this is only part of the story. High PCEs often come with low trauma. In order to really test whether PCEs were responsible for better outcomes, we divided our survey respondents into four groups. First we divided them into those with 0-4 PCEs and those with 5-7 PCEs; then we divided each of those groups by high/low trauma scores.

This meant we could look just at TCKs with high trauma, or just with low trauma, and see whether PCE scores made a difference within each group. Over and over, through dozens of different factors, high PCE scores made a difference for TCKs.

Even When Life Is Hard, Preventive Care Matters

We repeatedly saw that even when TCKs experienced trauma during childhood, those with higher PCE scores had better long term outcomes. For a TCK with 3 or more ACEs, also having 5-7 PCEs meant they were:

  • 38% less likely to smoke
  • 67% less likely to abuse prescription medication
  • 46% more likely to say that the TCK life was a good experience overall
  • 2x more likely to say living abroad made their family closer
  • 2.3x more likely to say the TCK life was “wonderful, no regrets”

Sometimes, the traumas that form an ACE score are hard for parents and caregivers to prevent. Bad things happen, even to good people, good families, and when everyone tries their best. For example, parents struggling with their own emotional or mental health during difficult international transitions are not always capable of parenting at their best, especially when solid support is in short supply. 

The good news is that protective factors are powerful — and many occur outside the home. Every family needs a village to provide additional support for their children, to create this protective shield against the difficulties of life.

Preventive Care Is for ALL Families

Yet preventive care is not just for those kids and families having a difficult time. Preventive care helps everyone! TCKs with 0-2 Adverse Childhood Experiences also benefited from the presence of Positive Childhood Experiences! Those with 5-7 PCEs were:

  • 38% less likely to abuse alcohol
  • 43% less likely to be diagnosed with a chronic illness
  • 44% less likely to experience suicidal ideation
  • 52% less likely to self harm
  • 63% less likely to have 25 or more sexual partners

The good news is that these protective factors make a difference in the lives of all TCKs, even when they are not experiencing childhood trauma. 

We Can All Make a Difference

Something that was clear across each group was the impact of PCEs on TCKs’ perception of their parents’ work abroad. If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard stories and read articles about missionary kids who felt let down by their parents’ work, by the missionary organisation they worked for, and even by God for sending their family to do such a hard thing. 

I think it is therefore really important to know that in our research, a TCK with all 7 PCEs was 2.2x more likely to be proud of their parents’ work abroad than a TCK with no PCEs. And whether they had low or high trauma scores, TCKs with 5 or more PCEs were 44% more likely to be proud of their parents’ work abroad. 

Part of caring for missionary families well is being the village they need to provide emotional support through life. Being the friends who form their community — sharing friendship, being ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ to their children, and celebrating traditions together. These things make a big difference in the lives of children growing up globally.

Learn more about the Protective Factors:

Free course on implementing PCEs

Read the free research report

Read the full research report

Watch the workshop explaining the research

Photo by Ryan Stefan on Unsplash

 

Attachment Styles and the Faith of MKs

I began studying Attachment Theory a while back. The deeper I dug, the more I realized its possible implications for MKs—how our relationship with our parents can shape our Attachment Style, and how our Attachment Style in turn might shape our relationship with God.

Attachment Theory is a complex topic with layers of fact, perspective, and nuance involved. And it certainly isn’t original to me—countless books have been written on the scientific research that has illuminated its realities. So please consider this merely a conversation starter. I’ll try to break some of the key concepts down into bite-sized pieces, but I encourage you to continue your own research as you seek to apply these theories to your understanding of yourself as an adult TCK or to the children you’re raising as TCKs.

I hope this overview will do for you what it did for me: shed a clarifying light on the relational dynamics of my very early years and how they impacted both my future relationships and my faith.

In the interest of brevity, I’ll leave you to read more about the history of Attachment Theory in the original article and podcast I’m linking below. But for now, let’s take a look at each of the four Attachment Styles.

The Four Attachment Styles

In the ministry world, the fact that our parents serve God will be intrinsically linked with any exploration of Attachment Styles. To the MK mind, if God inspires our parents’ work, values, priorities, and passions, it’s easy to assume that he inspires their parenting too. And the security or insecurity it builds into our psyches might just as easily be attributed to God himself.

It’s important to remember that Attachment Styles represent a framework, not a guaranteed outcome. Unusual personality traits, unique circumstances, or strong relationships outside the core family could divert a child’s Attachment Style from what would otherwise be predictable. The research into this topic identifies reliable trends, not universal truths.

1. Secure Attachment

This Attachment Style is characterized by confidence, optimism, and vulnerability in relationships. This kind of security is fostered by parents who are consistently present, loving, supportive, and reliable—particularly during those critical early childhood years when a sense of value, importance to others, and safety in relationship gets imprinted on our spirits.

A TCK with this form of attachment will feel comfortable with both closeness and independence. She’ll trust others and feel worthy of love. She’ll have the capacity to form healthy and lasting relationships.

The core question for Secure Attachment might be: Why wouldn’t I believe that someone can love me?

2. Anxious Attachment (also known as Preoccupied Attachment)

Anxious Attachment is characterized by uncertainty about our worthiness. This is often related to parents who were not consistent in the attention and care they showed their children—sometimes available and involved, and sometimes distracted or absent. The child with this Attachment Style yearns for connection but gets stuck in a pattern of trying to earn it somehow—because he learned early in life to question his value and lovability, as well as his ability to maintain the attention and commitment of others.

A TCK with an Anxious Attachment style will still reach for closeness, but fear rejection and abandonment. He might appear more needy than others. Be overly sensitive and insecure in relationships. It can show up in contradictory ways too: in inordinate clinginess or in a self-sabotaging impulse to end relationships before the other person has the chance to reject him.

The core question for Anxious Attachment might be: Is there anything about me than can earn consistent love?

3. Avoidant Attachment (Dismissive)

Avoidant Attachment is characterized by low (or no) expectations. It is a mirror of the absence of caregiving that person experienced as a child from relationally unengaged, dismissive, or seemingly uncaring parents.

Though we all by nature have a deep-seated longing for true connection woven into our DNA, the avoidant person will convince herself that she really doesn’t want or need any form of vulnerable relationship. She’ll tell herself that it probably won’t be returned anyway. And that it’ll hurt a lot less to live without hoping for more.

A TCK with Avoidant Attachment will prefer relational independence to connection and closeness. She might come across as ultra-self-sufficient, aloof, and disinclined to emotional intimacy.

The core question Avoidant Attachment Style might be: Why would I ever think that someone could care for me?

4. Disorganized Attachment (Fearful/Avoidant)

Disorganized Attachment is characterized by relational inconsistency. It shows up as volatility in relationships—like a desire for closeness paired with fear of vulnerability. Or in contradictory behaviors—like drawing someone close only to push them away. Where Anxious Attachment desires connection and tries to earn it, Disorganized Attachment has a pattern of opening the door to attachment then slamming it.

A TCK with Disorganized Attachment craves connection as desperately as he fears it. He’s confused by his early relationship with caregivers, set off-kilter by their unpredictability, instability, and chaos. Sometimes there was love. Sometimes there was contempt. Sometimes he felt nurtured and sometimes it seemed those entrusted with caring for him didn’t even know he was there.

When parents are neglectful or dizzyingly mercurial, the adult whose understanding of relationships was formed in that uncertainty will apply the same pattern to future relationships.

The core question for Disorganized Attachment might be: Why should I risk trusting or depending on anyone?

The Impact of Attachment Styles on the Faith of MKs

As I’ve sat with this research for the past few months, I’ve wondered how Attachment Styles might also impact our faith. The Bible, after all, uses the term “Father” to describe God, and faith is primarily framed around relationship with him.

Looking back at my own life, I can see how the defense mechanisms I learned in my early years were directly reflected in my approach to God—how they complicated and undermined it. I’ve seen the same challenges in the MKs I work with.

But I want to affirm that an Attachment Style is not inflexible—whether it be in our human relationships or in our faith. There is room for growth. For hope and for healing. For reimagined connection with others and with God—the Father who can disarm the self-defenses we might have learned in our ministry-saturated childhoods.

God the Father is a comforting image for so many believers, conjuring care, provision, and presence. Those who have experienced human parents who loved them well will easily project those same traits onto the spiritual being also referred to as Father.

But for people who spent their early years with caregivers whose love they perceived as less than fervent, committed, or dependable, our understanding of the word “Father” could trigger the same unhealthy Attachment Styles we learned in hard childhoods. And we’ll assign to him traits that will validate our fear or hesitancy around a dependent relationship.

Those of us with insecure Attachment Styles may even narrow our reading of Scripture to just those stories and descriptions that legitimize our misgivings, not out of conscious self-deception, but as a form of subconscious self-protection—reminding ourselves that he may not be safe. Our expectations of who God is can indeed be shaped by our early human relationships.

If we grew up with Secure Attachment, we’ll be able to go to God the Father with confidence, knowing that he sees and loves us, that he wants our flourishing, that he is patient and kind and faithful. That’s what we learned from growing up with our own parents.

And the Bible will validate that perception. We’ll dwell on the passages where Jesus shows his goodness. Where he is present and comforting. Where he heals and provides. We’ll look back on our lives and see his “Fatherness” in the blessings we’ve experienced—and our sureness about his father-heart will allow us to place responsibility or blame for the harm we may have endured along the way on other forces and factors. We know that fathers love their children and can be trusted.

The faith statement for Secure Attachment might be: Since my own busy, missionary parents found a way to make me a priority, I know the Father they serve will too.

If we grew up with Anxious Attachment, we might question whether we’re truly lovable to God. There were times when our parents treated us like precious gifts to be cherished and nurtured, and times when we couldn’t seem to hold their attention. So we might expect the same from God, wondering if he loves us in a devoted way or if there’s something we need to do to earn relationship with him and care.

And in our minds, the Bible seems to validate this view of God. There are verses in which God’s love shines right off the pages—where we see him moved by the need, fear, and deaths of others. But there are also the passages where he rages against humanity. When people beg for him to see and hear them, but he doesn’t seem to. We might bypass the “in his own image” message of Genesis that paint us as good and beloved and see ourselves instead in the passages where we’re called fallen and unworthy

The faith statement for Anxious Attachment might be: I don’t think there’s any way that I can earn God’s love—but I’ll give it a try.

If we grew up with Avoidant Attachment, viewing God as the Father might paint a picture of someone who doesn’t even know we exist. We don’t think relationship is possible because we don’t think we matter enough for him to take time away from saving the world to pay attention to our needs and concerns—let alone abide with us in everyday ways. “Father,” in our Style vocabulary, means uninterested and unreachable.

We resonate with David’s statement that “God doesn’t care! He has closed his eyes and will never see me!” (Psalm 10). Our prayers have gone unanswered. We’ve witnessed tragedies in which he didn’t intervene. We’ve lived through trauma inflicted by people claiming to act in his name. And we’ve never sensed his compassionate eyes on us.

The faith statement for Avoidant Attachment might be: My own missionary parents didn’t show any desire for connection with me as they served God the Father, so I can’t expect anything different from him either.

And if we grew up with Disorganized Attachment, the notion of relationship with God feels dangerous. We honestly don’t know whether he is kind or cruel. Yes, we’ve seen him do great things for places and people. But we’ve also seen him angry and vengeful.  

And we can find evidence of that in the Bible as well. The God who created the universe and said it was good then destroyed it with a flood. The God who loved Mary and Martha let them suffer at the death of their brother. The God who said, “Let the children come unto me,” allowed Herod to kill thousands of babies.

The mercurial parents we knew seem reflected in what we’ve learned about God the Father, and our faith will mirror that. We may love and need him one day, but fear and distrust him another. Or both at the same moment. That makes it impossible to really commit.

The faith statement for Disorganized Attachment might be: I never knew what version of my parents I was going to get, so I’m going to go ahead and trust the Father as long as he seems trustworthy, but I’m going to bail the moment he’s not . . . until I need him again.

Hope for Insecure Attachment Styles

Here’s the good news: Attachments Styles can shift. There’s some debate about whether they can be “reprogramed” vs. “managed,” but there is clear evidence that we are not condemned to a life controlled by early relational self-defense mechanisms. It may not easy and it likely won’t be quick, but it can happen.

I should know.

For most of my life, I was stuck in a powerful form of Avoidant Attachment, both in my personal relationships and in my faith. Looking back, I can see the cost of that kind of self-protection in so many ways.

But I can also see how people who followed Jesus and loved me well began to soften my rigid stances. How an honest acknowledgment of parental shortcomings gave me the freedom to reach much less grief-bound conclusions. How therapy and worship and incremental changes drew me small-step by small-step into a healthier and “realer” vision of who I am, of who God is, and of what can be both released and learned from former relationships.

Although healing is a process that plays out until our last breath, I can attest that the person I am today is so much more secure in my relationships and so much more dependent in my faith.

The path to wholeness and more secure attachment will be different for each of us. On a human-to-human relationship level, finding freedom and rewriting our patterns might involve a collection of approaches:

      • Pursuing personal self-compassion and growth
      • Finding help through therapy or support groups or both
      • Intentionally entering friendships with trusted people who understand our tendencies and whose healthy attachment styles won’t force us into repeating known patterns
      • Exploring and internalizing the unconditional love of God as expressed in his Word and demonstrated in his Son

    There are so many resources that address healing in this area—books, podcasts, scientific articles. I’ll leave it to you to search for the ones that are written/produced by reputable sources and apply to your specific scenario.

    But healing is possible on a spiritual level too. There are a number of approaches that may be helpful if this is what you’d like to explore for yourself. Note that this is not prescriptive! The following are suggestions of possible first steps on a much longer journey that you’ll want to tailor to your situation and needs:

        • Examining how the Attachment Style developed through our parental relationships might be coloring our view of and engagement with God
        • Processing our relational influences and behaviors through honest conversations with trusted friends who might see in us what we don’t
        • Seeking help from appropriate forms of counseling, in order to move toward spiritual renewal and freedom from past scars
        • Praying for God to reveal his true self to us through what he shows us in his Word and in his Son’s life, in whatever “language” our soul hears best: Scripture, music, nature, conversation, art, science, or narrative
        • Learning more about his heart for us as we look back and find him already woven into our story
        • Gradually—as our capacity grows—investing more of our trust in him, finding him worthy, and then investing some more

    Our Attachment Styles are symptoms—self-defense mechanisms—not immutable traits. They can soften. They can bend. They can be redeemed into something honest and good.

    This is the truth I want MKs to live in.

    Parents of still-growing TCKs, I hope you haven’t read these words as an indictment or as judgment. We can only do what we know. If this is new information for you, I encourage you to dig deeper into this topic, to examine your practices, and to check in with your children about what they’ve learned from your parenting and how it might have colored their perception of God. Growth is a continuum, and it’s never too late to start.

    My prayer is that we’ll all, whatever our status or stage of life, be attuned to our own needs, aware of any unhealthy self-defenses we harbor, and mindful that the way we care for others, especially children, might inform their understanding of God. His love is not dependent on our worthiness or determined by a capricious willingness to engage.

    It is steady. Sturdy. Without conditions and undimmable.

    ~~~~~

    Want to learn more? Here are some suggestions for a place to start:

    You can find the extended version of this article and podcast episode here.
    Photo by Dan Dennis

    Could God Be Preparing TCKs to Meet the Deepest Needs of This Generation?

    Motherhood photo by Mukil Menon.

    Growing up overseas offers children an incredible opportunity to develop a global perspective based on the lived experiences of forming personal connections across cultures. I’ve certainly seen that unfold from my own childhood, and in my work as an expat consultant, I’m watching the next generation carry forward a global mindset that is making an exceptional impact on relationships, identities, and a strong witness for Christ. But this doesn’t happen by accident. 

    My own story began as an American child living in Cameroon, where my parents served as Wycliffe Bible translators. Our missionary life started the day our ivory family of six spilled out of our Nissan truck and into the lives of an ebony clan who would become family, changing me forever. Two decades earlier, an elder of their village had written a plea to Wycliffe for a Bible translation in his language. He unknowingly forged the path that would make me a Third Culture Kid — someone who spent a significant amount of their childhood years abroad. 

    Growing up in Cameroon shaped me profoundly. It made other people’s experiences anything but distant. News of war in Africa wasn’t a faceless story. I shared life with people who were killed or displaced in Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis. My husband is a TCK whose family lived through not one, not two, but several evacuations from war-torn countries. The people who experienced days without potable water, dehydration, hushing their babies while hiding in the bush, homemade bombs going off at social gatherings, retribution for speaking out, the terrible silence of ghost towns, and the wailing of women were not nameless people in a news article to me. 

    A childhood spent with these people also made their joys anything but distant. The children they birthed were babies I carried on my back and celebrated when they brought home their first report cards. Witnessing the people of my childhood hold the Word of God in their own language for the first time wasn’t just a media post I swiped past. It was sacred and deeply moving — the culmination of sharing 20 years of my family’s life with a community that fed me beans from the same bowls as their children, taught me their songs and stories around kitchen fires, boiled herbal medicine when I was sick, and cried shouts of joy when they hugged me home from boarding school. They were worth sacrificing for, and they felt the same way about us.

    Growing up between worlds gives children the chance to experience the love, joy, loss, pain, and victory of our global neighbors in a deeply personal way — one that often moves them to action later as adults. Often unaware of their own strengths, Adult TCKs tend to be highly sought after in today’s job market due to essential skills that were developed as a result of their globally-mobile childhood. 

    According to wealth management companies Creative Planning International and Sable International, ATCK skills include compassion, empathy, adaptability, open-mindedness, independence, resilience, problem-solving, and the ability to consider multiple perspectives.1 These qualities are increasingly rare and extremely attractive in a Western backdrop marked by divisiveness, screen saturation, and overstimulation. This growing recognition is fueling the rise of world schoolers, families who choose to work remotely to provide real-world, cross-cultural experiences as the foundation for their children’s education.

    Globally raised children are poised to make a significant impact on the next generation on a spiritual level too. Their experiences abroad foster carefully curated skills that will directly address the projected societal deficiencies of Gen Alpha. Experts predict that Gen Alpha will face psychological challenges from digital lives, including unsustainable pace, relentless change, lack of genuine connection, lack of face-to-face contact, risk-aversion, real-world interaction deficiencies, fragmented attention, and more.2 Additional challenges include social fragmentation, polarization, and difficulty forming meaningful relationships. We already see warning signs of this in Gen Z.

    God’s heart for all people compels us to prepare ourselves and our kids with the tools necessary to minister to each generation’s unique challenges. 1 Timothy 2:3-4 reminds us of the breadth of God’s heart: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”3 So, how will we reach them?

    I believe today’s TCKs are uniquely positioned to minister to Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s challenges with a clarity of the gospel that is a direct result of their global upbringing. TCK Training’s 2024 survey of 1,643 adult TCKs representing 92 nationalities uncovered exciting information about the third culture kid experience.4 Their strengths align remarkably well with the skills needed to meet future challenges:

    • 93% of adult TCKs report having a broad worldview — a crucial skill in addressing complex spiritual questions in an information-saturated generation.
    • 83% see themselves as bridges between cultures — a critical capability in holding the core truth of scripture in tension with an increasingly polarized culture.
    • 83% report compassion as a strength — a necessary trait as Gen Alpha is projected to be more deficient in meaningful face-to-face contact than previous generations.
    • 82% report adaptability — an essential skill as Gen Z and Gen Alpha face complex issues with unprecedented access to information.
    • 78% report open-mindedness — an important tool in an increasingly globalized world. 

    When I consider the reported strengths of TCKs, I can’t help but wonder if God is purposefully building Gen Z and Gen Alpha TCKs to minister to the wounds of their own generation. Is it possible that God will use their upbringing between cultures to bridge the gap and equip them with a profound clarity of the lived gospel? Might this powerfully shake the world and bring healing to our spiritual sickness? 

    But here’s the caveat. This only holds true when it’s done well. 

    Over the last few generations, the international community has learned painful lessons about the importance of intentional parenting in the expat context. We would do well to learn from what works and what doesn’t in raising kids abroad. While the TCK experience offers a valuable and rich foundation, mishandling it can lead to grave repercussions. TCKs are at higher risk for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) than other populations, which can result in long-term physical and mental health complications when left unattended.5 

    Does this mean parents should avoid raising children abroad? Absolutely not. 

    Consider this analogy: I’m at risk for plantar fasciitis. Should I avoid walking, hiking, or running? Recent studies show that a sedentary lifestyle is as harmful to my health as smoking and diabetes. In fact, not exercising was found to increase risk of death by 500%.6 Avoiding exercise is not the answer to my fullest and healthiest life. Instead, I researched triggers and mitigating factors and pursued an active lifestyle while investing in supportive shoes, stretching, and taking breaks when I detected pain.

    In the same way, parents can raise TCKs while addressing specific risks and implementing mitigating factors. Due to mobility, the number one risk factor for TCKs is loss of connection—with primary caregivers and with community. Stress for parents, frequent moves, and the loss of familiar environments all heighten this risk.

    This is where the power of TCK-informed parenting comes in. If loss of connection is the primary risk factor for TCKs, what would happen if TCK connection were centralized in the expat community? 

    In 2019, Dr. Christina Bethell conducted a study of 6,188 people at John Hopkins to determine which childhood factors built resilience instead of fragility in adult mental health.7 She found that even children who had experienced mild to severe trauma in childhood went on to have greater resilience and better mental and emotional health in adulthood if they also had positive connections with primary caregivers, peers, and the community.8 The study further showed that Positive Childhood Experiences, or PCEs, had a cumulative effect in that the more PCEs a child had, the greater their health in adulthood.

    This study’s impact on preventive care science leaves us with hope that increasing access to PCEs may alter the trajectory of children at risk for trauma and higher ACE scores. It further explains the significant and lasting difference that caregivers and the community make in raising a healthy generation.

    The eight PCEs are:

    1. The ability to talk with family about feelings.
    2. The sense that family is supportive during difficult times.
    3. Feeling safe and protected by an adult in the home.
    4. Feeling supported by friends.
    5. Feeling a sense of belonging in high school.
    6. Participating in community traditions.
    7. Having at least two non-parent adults who genuinely cared (Pinetree Institute).
    8. Belonging to a multi-generational group. 

    Each of the PCEs center on connection, starting with the primary caregiver and then extending to the wider community. Children who consistently had 6-7 PCEs were 72% less likely to develop mental illness in adulthood. Those who had 3-5 were 50% less likely to develop depression and poor mental health.9 Everyone plays a stewardship role in building vibrant childhoods — from parents, to peers, and the wider community. 

    Many of us in the expat community are painfully aware of crash-and-burn stories of TCKs whose needs were put on the backburner in a passionate pursuit of global work. Even armed with these insights as a TCK mom, I was not immune to my own blindspots and moments of disconnection. However, as an expat family instructor, I am deeply encouraged by today’s TCK parents and their strong commitment to centralize the needs of the family as a launching point for effective ministry, not a secondary consideration.

    It is true that TCKs are at higher risk than other populations for a high ACE score largely due to mobility and loss of connection. Yet the good news is clear: Positive Childhood Experiences grounded in meaningful relationships have a protective and lasting effect. Even in the face of adversity, children who experience strong family bonds, supportive friendships, and a sense of belonging are significantly more resilient and healthy.

    As an expat parent, it is within your hands to nurture your child’s potential to become spiritually whole themselves before becoming a globally aware citizen who brings God’s healing touch to their generation. It starts with TCK-informed parenting — knowing the risks, focusing on connection, and raising spiritually and emotionally vibrant children. The stakes are too high to remain uninformed.

    If you would like to know where to start, here are resources I recommend.

    Footnotes
    1 Sengelmann, Peter. Benefits of Living Overseas with Children. Creative Planning International. (September 23, 2024). Accessed 01/29/2025; Shrosbree, Leanne. 10 reasons growing up abroad gives your children a head start in life. Sable International. (June 6, 2019). Accessed 01/29/2025.
    2 Nellis, Joe. What does the future hold for Gen Alpha? Cranfield Executive Development. Accessed 01/28/2025; Haidt, Jonathan. End the Phone-Based Childhood Now. The Atlantic. (March 13, 2024). Accessed 01/29/2025.
    3 English Standard Version Bible. Bible Gateway. Accessed 02/08/2025.
    4 Crossman, T., Wells, L., Vahey Smith, E., & Kanabar, S. (2025, January 20). First Look: Data from the 2024 Survey on the Impact of Childhood Global Mobility on Adult Wellness, 52. Retrieved from https://www.tcktraining.com/research/first-look-data-from-the-2024-survey
    5 Ibid., 9.
    6 Mandal, Anaya. Not exercising is worse than smoking, diabetes or heart disease finds study. News Medical Life Sciences. (October 21, 2018). Accessed 01/28/2025.
    7 Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R. Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Mental and Relational Health in a Statewide Sample: Associations Across Adverse Childhood Experiences Levels. JAMA Pediatr. (2019):e193007. Accessed 02/01/2025.
    8  Pinetree Institute. Positive Childhood Experiences (PCES). Accessed 02/01/2025.
    9 Bethell C, Jones J, Gombojav N, Linkenbach J, Sege R. Positive Childhood Experiences. JAMA Pediatr. (2019):e193007. Accessed 02/01/2025.

     

    This article expands on data shared in “Key Takeaways for TCKs” in Mission Frontiers, May/June 2025.

    Photo by Mukil Menon, Unsplash.

    Co-Grieving Loss with Your Repatriated TCK

    We didn’t have words for TCK loss back then. Not when I left Cameroon at nineteen and stepped onto U.S. soil as a stranger to my own country. But just because there weren’t words doesn’t mean the ache of loss didn’t burrow deep. Nineteen and newly repatriated felt like drowning in a sea of people who looked like me and talked like me but didn’t know the red-earth-Africa that shaped me. 

    I hardly recognized the girl I became in the wake of losing Cameroon, my best friends, and everything that felt familiar. That season was one of the hardest – and one of the unhealthiest – of my life.

    Now, after the years have fast forwarded to an empty nest, I find myself looking back, not just at my own story but at theirs. I think of my children, my third culture kids, who built rich and beautiful lives on South African soil, their home. How will they handle letting go? How will they carry the weight of leaving behind the people and places that shaped them?

    When I saw Megan Norton’s invitation to write a letter to my recently repatriated TCKs for her upcoming book, Letters Now Sent, I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I know the grief of leaving a place that tattoos an indelible mark on your soul. As their mother and as a TCK myself, I want to co-grieve their losses of saying goodbye to a life they loved in South Africa. And I know where I want them to root themselves now, as they step into adulthood in the U.S.

    This letter is a new beginning with new language for parents of TCKs. It is my way of opening the door to a safe and sacred conversation with my young adult children—one established in love, shared understanding, and the kind of hope that reroots through the cracks of even the hardest losses. While their reactions to my letter are deeply personal and honey to my heart, I can tell you that this budding conversation was met with warm reciprocity and open arms. 

    A letter to Elaina and Sawyer Danforth, 2025 (republished at A Life Overseas with permission) 

    My two dearest toasted marshmallows,

    You are eighteen and nineteen now. University carries a steep learning curve for everyone, but especially for the ones like you who left home, country, and friends to be grafted back to the place of your heritage. 

    As second-generation TCKs, you belong to a tribe that your father and I know well. Your childhood was formed in the womb of the cradle of humankind, in KwaZulu-Natal, and it ended abruptly on the other side of a plane ride to the United States. But the things that formed you there still sing in every crevice of your mind and shape the way you see the world. 

    Repatriation is a season when the losses of the familiar sink in hard for TCKs. And these are the years when you become aware of your roots, the ones that have been transplanted to new soils and now feel wildly distinct and out of place. The places of your childhood are the places where your formative and deepest roots grow. And the soil of South Africa no longer surrounds or supports you. 

    You’ll remember from working on our farm that a transplanted plant often wilts for a while. It is learning to survive in a new and unfamiliar environment. Its roots aren’t sure what to make of its new home. They don’t know whether they can unfurl and take new life or whether the newness will be hostile to growth. Repatriating TCKs are the same. 

    While my roots in South Africa will never be as deeply formative as yours, I am here to co-grieve your losses with you. I did the same as a nineteen-year-old with my Cameroonian roots. And your father did too, at eighteen with his Congolese and Central African roots. 

    Some losses are obvious. Our imperfectly perfect little farmhouse and the stability of its cracked walls. The foamy blueness of whales flirting between the horizon and the Indian Ocean. The oneness of our multicultural, multi-lingual farm family. The wind-whipped cheeks from four-wheeling wild past giraffes. The saggy eyes after Minecraft all-nighters with friends. The laughter with your non-blood sisters farmsteading in the mountains. The crispy-edged pancakes hot off the griddle every Saturday morning. The seasonal ebb and flow of subtropical downpours and droughts. 

    But some losses are hidden. Some, you won’t even know you miss until you come across them years later. And you’ll be caught off guard by a sudden feeling of home. Hidden losses are the sounds, smells, and invisible things that God sprinkled into the backdrop of your childhood. They are the things that you didn’t even know weren’t everywhere on planet earth. Until they weren’t. 

    Your hidden losses don’t have to make sense to anyone else. They don’t even have to be pleasant. But something about these background sounds and smells had a profound impact on developing the unseen part of who you are today. And we honor those gifts by naming them. 

    The background sound of your childhood is the cry of hadedas filling pink southern skies and beckoning your sleepy eyes open. You didn’t even know the sound was missing until that first morning in a Midwest dormroom when the synthetic shock of an alarm clock demanded your attention. 

    It is the faithful singsong Xhosa greeting “Molweni” on your proud farm stoep. It is the mourning doves telling each other off gently and sternly. It is the inexplicable peace of violent rains threatening to crash right through tôle roofs. It is the baying of hounds, whether to threaten skelems or to give chase to dassies, outside your burglar-barred window. 

    It is the South African flavor in which people have always said your name. It is the twisted, segregated history healing in real time through the harmony of church songs in English, Afrikaans, and Zulu. It is the comfort of our family’s age-old call to meals that reaches back to the recesses of your first independently held spoon, “On va prier.”

    The background smell embedded in the roots of your childhood is a eucalyptus flame licking Karoo lamb ribs on the braai. It is soft buttermilk vanilla steam from an Ouma rusk dunked in Five Roses tea. How can something be so moorishly crunchy and goopy at the same time? It is the barely-there salt in the air where the Indian Ocean laps at the sky. And yes, it is even the familiar sewage plant every time we try to hold our breath at that bend in the highway by Uvongo.

    Your roots will fumble around in this new place of red, white, and blue for a while, figuring out what is friendly soil and what isn’t. And this is the time. Dit is tyd to close your eyes, take a breath, and rediscover the power of your one unshakable tap root. It is your deepest root. The most formative one. The most familiar one. The most stabilizing one. It is your one root that pushes far past all the others, past every good and rocky soil, reaching like life depends on it, to the source of life. Water. Living Water. 

    It is in Living Water that you’ve always found life and truth and all that is good. When everything around is unfamiliar, this source is the familiar. 

    You’ll find community in the taproots of familiar people planted there too. And you’ll come to know new people who are automatically family because their taproot seeks life in the same place where yours does. This is the good stuff, my toasted marshmallows. 

    While your secondary roots stumble around and try to make sense of star-spangled life, sink all your energy, all your questions, all your everything into your taproot’s source of life. It is the one and only thing that will never change no matter where you go, how far you fall, or how unfamiliar everything else seems. 

    Taprooted to the Source with you,

    Mom (Anna Danforth)

    ~~~~~~~

    Inspired by Ruth Van Reken‘s book Letters Never Sent, Letters Now Sent will be a collection of letters from TCKs, parents of TCKs, and system leaders to share personal stories about their experiences with TCKs, being a TCK themself, and/or raising TCKs. This book is a fusion of both memoir and anthology written in a specific “Dear [name]” format. 

    Here is the Google Form link to submit a letter with additional details about length and content prompts: https://forms.gle/jQyzq3TtFqfyznvCA. The deadline to submit a letter is March 31, 2025, and the book will be launched in July 2025 at Ruth’s 80th birthday celebration. Families in Global Transition is hosting the 80th Birthday party in Chicago on July 26, 2027, and registration will be live on their website soon. You do not have to be a member of FIGT to register for this event.

    Introducing a New Middle Grade Fiction Novel for TCKs

    Sam’s Roommate Disaster released today on Amazon as the newest TCK book on the market. 

    Have you ever read a story and felt like you were reading your life? Growing up as a kid in Cameroon, I never had that experience – even though I poured over the books in our extensive homeschool library. My new book, Sam’s Roommate Disaster, is my attempt to change that for young TCKs. 

    TCKs can get exhausted from frequent change and loss. While there’s a lot of loss in the globally mobile experience, there is also precious gain, and that is the beauty of the TCK experience. I want third culture kids to have relatable stories where, even in the pain of unexpected change, they see that it is worth leaning into new experiences and new people to see what is on the other side.

    I wrote this book for the kids whose backgrounds are underrepresented in children’s literature. I wrote it for the kid who doesn’t like school and who struggles with reading. I wrote it for the one who daydreams during class, the one who wants to be outside exploring. I wrote it for the kid who does something without thinking and then wonders, “Why in the world did I just do that?” 

    I wrote it for the kid whose friend moved away and they’re pretty they’ll never make a friend like that again. I wrote it for the kid who is misunderstood and doesn’t want anyone to know why. 

    I wrote it for third culture kids who live behind cement walls, the ones sitting in metros, and the ones running barefoot through jungles. I wrote it for their monocultural cousins who need a sneak peek at childhood overseas. I wrote it for the kid who needs an imaginative escape into a world of friends and adventures. 

    I wrote it for the moms who have to send their kids to boarding school. I wrote it for the dorm staff who became like second parents for TCKs during formative years. I wrote it for international school teachers who want a fresh book with settings that don’t have white picket fences and characters who make all the right choices. But mostly, I wrote it for your kid.  

    I wrote Sam’s Roommate Disaster right in the thick of an incredibly difficult season in my own journey as a global worker. It was a time when I needed to come up for air. And that meant revisiting the awe and wonder of childhood stories, both mine and my husband’s. It meant sharing stories with my kids around the dinner table. 

    It meant listening to the giggles of old friends as they told stories from their perspective. It meant opening doors to hear fresh adventures from my in-laws about their wild child, Sam, who did all the things, took all the risks, made some mistakes, and picked himself back up again. And it meant fanning a spark of creative writing which soon became a flame that brought me great joy. 

    Disappearing into these stories transported me back to steamy jungle rains, clunky old bikes with tales that could fill libraries of books, tight sibling bonds, and small schools where your youth group leader is also your math teacher. It took me back to the feeling of dread after doing something dumb and realizing you made a mistake. It awakened the feeling of hot tears on freckled cheeks, the rush of wind through hair on a runaway horse, that first crush. It made me remember small class sizes where even the tattletale belonged and the unforgettable innocence of childhood BFFs.  

    As your kids read this book, I hope it solidifies their belief that the world of third cultures is one in which they belong. This is their tribe and TCKs are their people, whether they’re in Thailand, Hungary, or Uganda.

    If you grew up overseas and you read this to your kids, I hope it transports you back to a time of jungle rains, small schools, and BFFs. Mostly, I hope it unlocks your ability to share your own story with your kids, because that’s what they really need to hear. 

    Book Teaser:

    “Sam’s heart pounded like a hot basketball in his ears. If he heard one more snore from his roommate, his anger might just spill out, and there was nothing more embarrassing than crying in fifth grade. Scrunching the covers tighter around his head didn’t do anything to muffle the noise rumbling from the bottom bunk. Being eleven at boarding school was hard enough, let alone sharing a room with Jordan, the only kid at boarding school who snored like a freight train.”

    Buckle up for adventures in the jungles of Congo with boarding school kid, Sam! Hold on tight, because 5th grade for Sam includes a run-in with a highly venomous green mamba, a runaway horse, a heart-pounding close call on his dirt bike, and an angry mama pig. His biggest challenge, however, has nothing to do with snakes or pigs. Sam’s greatest challenge is his new roommate, Jordan.

    Jordan is making 5th grade impossible. He’s loud and messy, and he ignores Sam. When Sam realizes there may be more to the story, will he decide to keep his distance or give his roommate a chance?

    What kids are saying:

    “I like the suspense, the love, and disliking feelings.” –Sam, age 11 (Indonesia)

    “Readers beware: full of motorcycle chases, green mambas, flying lizards, and the

    dreaded banana bread.” – Michael, 8th grade  (Cameroon)

    “I really loved how the descriptions made me feel like I was with them throughout their adventures! After reading this book I would really like to learn how to ride a dirt bike!” – Eliana, age 11 (El Salvador)

    “It was really fun and exciting, and it was encouraging at the perfect time when I needed it.” – Charlie, age 9 (Hungary and Mongolia)

    “This book was really great! I could really relate to my own life as a missionary kid and all the adventures I’ve had!” – Kora, age 10 (Colombia)

    “It was cool to see what missionary life is like in other countries. Just watch out for banana bread and lizards with parachutes!” – Andrew, age 12 (Indonesia)

    “I liked this book because there are a lot of different adventures, and it’s based on real life. It’s an exciting book, and there’s never a dull moment!” – Asher, age 9 (South Africa)

    Fun Facts to share with your kids AFTER they’ve read the book:

    Yes, the stories are based on true events from either Sam’s childhood or mine. 

    Yes, I’m one of the characters. 

    No, I didn’t meet Sam until high school. 

    Yes, Sam hates bananas that much. 

    Yes, soccer really was that big of a big deal. Jordan went on to co-found Petrichor Football Association. 

    Yes, Josh and his red-headed crush ended up together. They live on a happy little farm in Indiana. 

    Yes, the lizards were fine.

    No, I’m not done writing kids’ books. I’m working on Book 2 of the Barefoot Around the World series.

    Where to find it:

    Head to Amazon now and grab your copy of Sam’s Roommate Disaster! Dive into exciting new tales that resonate with TCKs around the world. For a limited time, enjoy special discounts on b ebooks ($3.99) and paperbacks ($8.99) through August 23rd. Let’s revive storytime and make it an adventure your kids will love!


    Follow Raising a Family Overseas on Instagram and Facebook for practical tips and conversations about doing global family life.

    Accessing the Power of Good Debriefing

    A colleague of mine at TCK Training spent time preparing and travelling to facilitate a two-day debrief with a family who were on home assignment in their passport country. As they all introduced themselves and began to get to know each other, she asked what their hopes were for their time together over the next two days. The parents looked at each other and then back at her as they sheepishly admitted, “Actually, we have no idea. This is something our organisation requires, so we just signed up because we were supposed to. We have no clue what a debrief actually involves.” 

    While debriefing has grown in popularity and more missionaries are at least familiar with the concept, the actual nuts and bolts of a debrief can be a bit murky. Because of that, it can be hard to even know, “What is a good debrief?” What should your expectation be of the debrief you signed up for? How do you know a debrief went “well”? 

    As we’ve worked with hundreds of families at TCK Training, we’ve heard about a wide array of debrief experiences. There’s a vast mixture in what they received and how effective it was. We would love to see a broader understanding of the hallmarks of a good debrief, even if the execution differs.

    In this article I am going to explore what a good debrief involves, why good debriefing can be so powerful, and how to access quality debriefing – no matter what services are (or are not) made available to you in your own situation.

    Q: What is a good debrief?

    1) A good debrief is preventive. 

    That is, the debrief is not in response to a crisis situation but is part of a program of regular care. At TCK Training, we recommend that all families experiencing global mobility do a full debrief (two full days set aside for the sole purpose of debriefing the entire family) every 3-4 years and a check-in style “annual debrief” each year in between. While crisis situations also need to be addressed, this should not be the only situation in which a debrief occurs.

    2) A good debrief crafts an intentional, open-ended journey.

    Good debriefing is more than verbal processing, prompted with questions along the lines of “Tell me what happened? How did it go? What happened next?” A good debrief instead asks about all different facets of life, and is open to unexpected answers, not just looking to check items off a list. A good debrief asks intentional and purposeful questions that are crafted to lead you and your TCKs through a journey of discovery, finding things that need processing – even if you weren’t consciously aware of them.

    For children, this element of a good debrief involves engaging in a variety of ways. Since we all know that sitting across from a child and asking them direct questions isn’t particularly effective, we need to make sure that movement and creativity are a central part of a TCK debrief. 

    3) A good debrief creates a sacred space for hard things.

    During a good debrief, you feel safe to explore difficult experiences and the difficult emotions that go with them. You are not shamed for your emotions, worried that your emotions might be used against you, or that what you share might result in you losing your job. In the sacred space of a good debrief, you know there are no “right” or “wrong” answers. 

    4) A good debrief embraces both shared and individual experiences.

    At TCK Training we believe in the power of families working through debrief materials together. We all have shared experiences as a family, and it is helpful and healing to process those shared experiences together. During the debrief, parents get the opportunity to model expressing hard feelings and doing the hard work of emotional processing, with expert guidance to support them. As their children watch this, it will help them recognize the importance of this work and how to do it, as well as give them permission to do this work with their parents, not only in the moment but in the future.

    In addition, there will always be aspects of our lives as a family that are individual. Children and parents do not have the same experiences, nor does each child or each parent have the same experiences. Having individual sessions as well as family sessions is necessary to build self-awareness and for personal growth.

    Q: Why is a good debrief powerful?

    Making debriefs part of a regular program of preventive care leads to more beneficial outcomes. Reactive care – a debrief that takes place in the aftermath of a particularly stressful event – occurs when individuals are full of heightened and heavy emotions and aren’t able to fully engage in the debriefing process. During a preventive care-style debrief, individuals are less occupied with a specific need and can engage in the process of working through all the small things they have experienced over time. This leads to greater learning about themselves and their needs and greater likelihood of retaining that learning over time. 

    As part of an individual debrief, teenagers and adults alike get the opportunity to work through their experiences with guided assistance. The crafted questions of a good debrief help us recognise things we didn’t even know were hiding under the surface of our hearts and minds. We debrief our emotions, identity, grief and loss, subconscious expectations, and more. 

    Debriefing as a family helps us see where these different facts do and do not line up with each other – where we have different perspectives on the same events. Children are provided a safe space and a mediated opportunity to share emotions they have struggled to express. Parents can help fill in the gaps where children were missing part of the story. These can be powerful family moments.

    One Adult TCK shared with me that as a child, their missionary family had something called a “debrief” every four years through their parents’ missionary agency while on home assignment. Yet this experience never included anything individual for them as a child or teenager, where they could explore their feelings. In addition, they felt constrained to not speak about certain events. A debrief that created sacred space and acknowledged their individual journey would have been far more powerful. It would have combatted the loneliness far too many TCKs struggle with and instilled the value that they are worth being individually cared for.

    Q: How can our family access a quality debrief? 

    If your organisation offers (or requires) a debrief, try to get some information about what debrief means to them. You might ask what the debrief consists of, how children are involved, what the goals/aims of the debrief are, and how the debriefers are trained. 

    If your organisation does not provide debriefing, or the debriefing offered is not comprehensive, you could ask them to outsource these services to another organisation or to cover the cost of your family procuring a debrief elsewhere. Knowing what a good debrief is and why it matters will help in explaining why this is important to you.

    Our priority at TCK Training is ensuring that families have access to quality debriefing, both inside and outside the missionary world, and we are not the only group with this goal. Other sources of quality debriefs include MTI (Mission Training International), Alongside Ministries, TRAIN, and Safe Place Ministry. 

    TCK Training provides debriefing services (both in-person and virtual), and we also train others to provide good debriefs. (We have trained hundreds of people in how to conduct quality debriefs, including staff at various mission organisations.) To make quality debriefing even more accessible, we now offer a resource to help parents lead their own family debrief at home. We also have a FREE processing worksheet with great questions to ask yourself or someone else to help work through emotions. This free resource is a great place to start if you want to learn more about what a quality debrief can look like.

    Photo by Mike Scheid on Unsplash

    What Missionary Kids See on the Field Part 1: The Impact of Witnessed Trauma

    Trauma. What does this word make you think of? Does it worry you, even scare you? Does it bring to mind certain events from your own life? Have you seen it used so often that it’s beginning to lose meaning for you? 

    I found the definition of trauma Shonna Ingram shared in her post The Unseen Trauma of the Mission Field: What Trauma Is and What It Does very helpful:

    “Trauma results from any event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening and that has lasting negative effects on a person’s mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.”

    Over the years, A Life Overseas has not shied away from difficult topics – including trauma on the mission field and how it impacts missionaries and their children. Together we have written about how to understand trauma and heal from it; specific experiences of trauma and how to process them; the long-term impact of trauma on the field, including on mental health; theology of risk; toxic positivity; moral injury; and more. I have also shared research insights from my work with TCK Training, looking at the experiences of missionary kids and their families over time.

    Today I come with new data from TCK Training’s latest white paper (Sources of Trauma in International Childhoods) together with the collected wisdom of A Life Overseas’ authors. I’ll discuss data on potentially traumatic events witnessed by TCKs and reference excellent articles from the A Life Overseas (ALO) library. I’ll list these resources at the end.

    Why do we need to talk about trauma?

    In TCK Training’s research, which involved over 1,000 missionary kids (MKs), exposure to potentially traumatic events was one of two key risk factors linked to high ACE scores. High ACE scores in turn are linked with increased risk of a range of negative outcomes in adulthood. (The other key risk factor was high mobility, which I wrote about in Mobility is tough on kids: here’s how you can help.)

    It’s important to start by recognizing that trauma can, and does, happen everywhere all over the world. Staying in your passport country does not make you immune to trauma, and leaving for the mission field does not guarantee a traumatic outcome. Abigail Follows explained this nicely in The Myth of the Ideal Childhood, where she wrote that “disasters, traumas, and crises happen. They happen everywhere.”

    In addition, there is a difference between potential trauma and actual trauma. Witnessing a potentially traumatic event does not mean an individual will necessarily experience it as traumatic.

    As Kay Bruner wrote in Ask A Counselor: How Do We Recognize and Cope with Trauma, “The perception that we are helpless in the face of frightening events is one of the foundational pieces of psychological trauma. This helps us understand why some members of a family may be minimally impacted by an event, while others are deeply traumatized.” 

    In fact, lack of control means that sometimes children feel a deeper sense of trauma from an event than an adult might in that situation. In other cases, not understanding the full impact of what is happening might mean a child is less impacted. The important point is that we cannot know how each individual will respond, so assumptions are unhelpful.

    As we start to look at some difficult numbers together, let’s keep in mind these two pieces of wisdom:

    1. We are not comparing the experiences of missionary kids to a theoretical ‘perfect’ childhood they could have had elsewhere.
    1. Not every potentially traumatic event is experienced as trauma by each individual.

    Witnessing Potentially Traumatic Events

    The 1,904 ATCKs who took our survey were asked both if they had witnessed a certain type of event at all, and if they had witnessed this ‘regularly.’ The events we asked about included:

    • Extreme poverty
    • Serious traffic accident
    • Armed conflict
    • Traumatic death (human)
    • Traumatic death (animal)
    • Physical violence

    86% of missionary kids witnessed at least one of these potentially traumatic events; more than half of missionary kids witnessed potentially traumatic events regularly (53%).

    Extreme Poverty

    77% of missionary kids reported they had witnessed extreme poverty at least once, and 61% said they witnessed this regularly. Living among those experiencing extreme poverty and knowing you cannot fix it can lead to what Rachel Pieh Jones labelled ‘moral injury.’

    In her article on the topic, she writes: “All my high ideals and righteous ambitions lie in tatters at my feet while people around me go hungry and I can never feed them all. When injustice reigns and I don’t protest. When racism rules and I benefit. And that’s just what I’m willing to publicly confess.”

    Witnessing extreme poverty was the only item on the above list not linked to higher-than-average risk. That is, MKs who only witnessed extreme poverty (18% of the group) had an ACE risk similar to that seen in the general TCK population.

    Serious Traffic Accident

    In some countries traffic accidents are more common, and where cars regularly share badly maintained roads with motorcycles (and helmets are not worn), accidents can be particularly traumatic to witness. As Anna Glenn writes in The Untold Stories of Returned Missionaries, “[When] you see bodies on the side of the road mangled to the point of being unrecognizable, your psyche is forever impacted and sometimes there are just no words.” 

    Three out of every five missionary kids (40%) had witnessed a serious traffic accident by age 18. Nearly a quarter of those (9% of all missionary kids) witnessed serious accidents regularly. 

    When originally crafting this survey, we made sure to ask about serious traffic accidents because we’ve seen the impact of ongoing struggles related to witnessed accidents, even when TCKs were not directly involved in the accident themselves. A variety of reactions, including fear, anxiety, nightmares, reluctance to drive/learn to drive, and PTSD, can be involved. 

    Witnessing Violence

    More than half of missionary kids (59%) witnessed one of the final four types of potentially traumatic events we listed: 

    1. armed conflict
    2. human death
    3. traumatic animal death
    4. physical violence

    For the purpose of our survey, we defined armed conflict as “two groups fighting with weapons.” We found that 20% of missionary kids had witnessed armed conflict.

    One quarter of missionary kids had witnessed the traumatic death of a person (24%), including 4% who witnessed a murder. They had the same increased ACE risk as those who witnessed armed conflict (28% of the group had high-risk ACE scores). The risk was higher again for MKs who regularly witnessed any kind of human death, with one third of this group having a high ACE score (33%), nearly double the rate for MKs overall. 

    In our work with adult TCKs, we have often found that animal death comes up as an event requiring debriefing as it had not been processed effectively at the time it occurred. More than one third of missionary kids (35%) reported witnessing the traumatic death of an animal. Witnessing animal death came with an increased ACE risk, especially when it happened regularly. The risk associated with regularly witnessing traumatic animal death was the same as the risk associated with regularly witnessing human death.

    What do we do about this?

    Based on the research around trauma, including the data we have on what MKs are experiencing, I have four suggestions about what we should do next. In my next article, I expand on these four ideas with practical suggestions and more quotes from the ALO library: 

    1. Protect children where possible.
    2. Fight the normalisation of trauma.
    3. Provide support to both parents and children.
    4. Continue support after they leave the field.

    The Good News

    Not all TCKs, and not all missionary kids, witnessed these types of potentially traumatic events. When we review the data on those who were not exposed, we find some wonderful news!

    Looking at the missionary kids who did not regularly witness traumatic events, only 9% had a high Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) score (4 or more out of 10), compared to 12.5% of Americans and 17% of MKs overall.

    Looking then at missionary kids who did not witness ANY potentially traumatic events, only 6% of recorded 4 or more ACEs – lower than seen in any study we could find in any country using the same question framing.

    This is really good news. It suggests that when MKs grow up in environments where they are not witnessing these types of potentially traumatic events, their families are healthier overall. 

    Read part two: What Missionary Kids See on the Field Part 2: Support that Lessens the Impact of Witnessed Trauma

    Resources referenced:

    The Unseen Trauma of the Mission Field: What Trauma Is and What It Does

    Sources of Trauma in International Childhoods (TCK Training)

    Mobility is tough on kids: here’s how you can help

    The Myth of the Ideal Childhood

    Ask A Counselor: How Do We Recognize and Cope with Trauma

    Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) (TCK Training)

    Moral Injury

    The Untold Stories of Returned Missionaries

    Photo by Nimrod Persson on Unsplash

     

    Heaven’s Embrace

    Pictured above: Mami Banla meets my daughter, Elaina, for the first time.

    Eight Cameroonian mamas adjusted their head coverings and stopped their chatter to watch the colorless foreign family spill out of a truck and into their lives one day in the remote mountain village of Lassin. Father, mother, and four kids poured out of the vehicle, all with gecko-pale skin that the sun threatened to slice right through. Their hair looked unmanageably “slimy.” That’s the only word one chuckling mama could use to describe it.  

    The women had heard from the leader of their large, extended family that this foreign family was to come live many years among their nest of eight clay huts and two block houses. The mamas respectfully greeted the strangers and then got back to work making cornmeal mush and spicy spinach to share with them that night.

    That was my introduction as a seven-year-old to the eight ebony women who would spend the next 13 years sharing life with me on the Kinyang compound.

    We shared space. Bamboo stools in small, smokey clay kitchens, cooking in the dark over open fire, waiting hours for beans to cook to fill rumbling tummies.

    We shared life. Gathering minty eucalyptus branches for firewood, pounding clothes clean at the waterfall, hunting for bats in a land void of light pollution, tugging goats home to safety at dusk.

    We shared family. Papas, mamas, and babies eating spinach and corn out of shared bowls, hauling heavy baskets of vegetables and dried fish home from the market, working together to save a roost of dying chickens, even a formal adoption ceremony of the six white foreigners into the Kinyang compound, complete with food and traditional clothes. 

    We shared comedy. Listening to my best friend’s deep belly laugh as they told traditional folklore around the night fire, discovering sugar cubes together for the first time, playing hide and seek in thatched kitchens, and three kids piled high on my bike as we raced down dirt roads. 

    We shared healing. Watching a mama boil eucalyptus and citrus leaves in a cast iron pot to “chase” my fever, praying life into a baby slipping into death, later naming that baby Kembonen or “Blessing,” driving friends on death’s door to the mission hospital two bumpy hours away, and mourning, nay, screaming grief out the healing and healthy way when loved ones died.

    We shared education. Making a sprawling dollhouse fantasyland out of braided grass on the soccer field, twisting horse hair snares to catch live birds for pets (and secretly collecting the horse hair to begin with), quickly escaping the wrong side of a green mamba.  

    We shared tragedy. My mom fishing two Fulani boys out of the bottom of a swirling river using only a rope and a hoe, visiting and praying over a deeply mentally disturbed woman, praying for the salvation of a boy whose body was being hollowed out by HIV/AIDS (the first case I witnessed), a baby falling into a fire.

    We shared death. Losing one of my new best friends to traditional medicine malpractice, quietly staring at another best friend’s tear-stained cheeks as he stood over his father’s grave, two family friends being poisoned in a Salem-style witch hunt.

    We shared new life. The most beautiful baby girl I’d ever seen with piercing ink eyes named Sheyen (“Stay and See”), a sweet nonverbal soul born into our compound family and named Peter, a young mama working in her cornfields up until the day of delivery, my mamas holding my own baby girl for the first time.

    We shared love. Sharing meager amounts of corn, chickens, and firewood, being hugged tight by eight mamas when I went off to boarding school, and many years later, those same eight mamas washing my body with a bucket of water and dressing me for my traditional wedding to a very white husband who had to pay my bride price through a translator.

    Love has a heavenly manifestation in Lassin. It is a literal physical embrace called “Ngocè,” specific to the region and used when someone has been away so long, you’re not sure if you’ll ever see them again. Short life spans, limited transportation, and no media communication at the time all contributed to the very real threat that you may never see someone again if they go off to the big city for college, boarding school, or a job. 

    If and when they do return, you drop everything right out of your hands, run to them, grab them with every fiber in your body, pat their back, and squeeze their arms almost in disbelief that they are standing in front of you. It is a symbol of astonishment, of amazement, of deep understanding of shared experiences, and of intense joy at reunification. It’s recognizing the gift of a moment you don’t deserve but are so glad to have. Ngocè is endowed through blood lines or adoption into a family, as we were.  

    I first experienced the Ngocè embrace from my mamas at age 12, after coming back from our first year-long furlough in America. I was back home, and I knew it. I experienced it again after coming home from boarding school in the capital city and when I brought my man home to negotiate a bride price of goats and rice with my mamas as a respectful (and fun) gesture. And again, years later from my dad, when I stepped off the plane from America to celebrate the 20-year project of the Nooni New Testament translation in Lassin.

    A visiting friend happened to record the Ngocè heavenly embrace when I returned to Lassin that final visit for the New Testament dedication celebration. I hadn’t seen the video in years and pulled it up on youtube last night. Tears stung my eyes and a lump formed in my throat when I watched my dad, my mom, and my mamas Ngocè me back home. Just watching it felt intensely like coming home, and it broke open a piece of my heart that comes alive when I’m really, really home.

    I can’t help but wonder if that’s exactly how I will meet Jesus in heaven. Running, arms flung open, in disbelief at the beauty of the moment and amazement at a new but long-awaited reunification, accepting a grace I know I don’t deserve but am so glad to have. We’ve shared space, life, family, comedy, healing, education, tragedy, death, new life, and love even longer and even more intimately than my Lassin family, he and I. The Ngocè embrace is the only way I can picture my first moments there with the one who so loves me. 

    Why is it so hard for missionaries to say “I’m not fine”?

    “Why do you think it’s so hard for missionaries to say, ‘I’m not fine?’”

    I recently posed this question to author and Third Culture Kid expert Ruth Van Reken. Her answer came swiftly and without hesitation, an answer that can only come from deep, personal experience.

    “It can take your whole faith apart.”

    Ruth is in her seventies, a missionary kid who learned in boarding school how to copy “I’m fine” from the template on the chalkboard for every letter she sent home. I’m in my twenties, a missionary kid who’s been an expert-smiler since as early as I can remember.

    In different ways across different decades, we both learned that being a missionary and not being “fine” is, well… not fine at all. How has this belief snaked its way through the missions community and persisted across the generations?

    One reason is that missionaries have historically been misconceived as spiritual superheroes among our Christian communities. I mean, how can superheroes not be fine?

    Another reason is the fear that our hardships might cast an uncomfortable sense of uncertainty on the goodness of the God who called us. We sacrificed everything for Him, right? Why is life so excruciatingly difficult?

    These subtle questions and misconceptions littered my childhood and contributed heavily to the “I’m fine” theology that I began to live out. To help you fully grasp how these messages contributed to always being “fine,” I’d like to invite you into a snapshot of my story (taken from my new book Stop Saying I’m Fine: Finding Stillness When Anxiety Screams).

    From the time I was a little girl, I went to church every Sunday. My dad was a pastor on staff, so it’s what we did. On Saturday nights, I always washed my hair for church the following morning, and I’d lay out something nicer than the clothes I’d wear on a typical Tuesday. I was often known by our congregation as the good girl who recited her memory verses perfectly, was always polite, and never complained. Although these were good, God-honoring things, some of the micro-messages that crept into my heart were not good. Or true.

    These micro-messages told me that being a good Christian meant always smiling and never talking about how you really felt.

    I learned that putting yourself together and making sure you smelled nice is what you did before you went into God’s house. Although I knew these measures were typically heeded out of respect, I noticed that other people appeared especially happy with the polished version of me.

    Is that how God felt about me, too?

    When I was nine, my family sold our home and moved to East Asia. My parents planned to partner with local churches in efforts to advance the gospel. In the months leading up to our departure, we sold nearly everything we owned. One Saturday afternoon, I spread out all my toys, with parental instructions to choose three. Everything else ended up in a pile at our garage sale, sporting fifty-cent stickers.

    I didn’t really know how to feel that day. I stood in the corner and watched strangers carry out our couch and kitchen table and silverware. I felt okay until a woman with short, spiky hair carried out my green bedspread. That was new bedspread. My throat tightened with a shiver of emotion. I loved that bedspread. I loved my room. I loved my home. I loved my life.

    I suddenly really didn’t like this moment.

    The losses just kept rolling in. But people kept telling me how excited I must be and how much we were honoring God by our commitment. I chalked up my grief to discontentment and determined to be fine. Wasn’t it silly to be sad about toys and bedspreads and ice-skating lessons when more important things (like gospel proclamation) were at stake?

    Besides, I was the good little girl who never complained. The micro-messages seeping into my heart sounded something like this: Anger and sadness are not allowed. These emotions are bad. Being happy all the time is what it means to honor God.

    So, I learned to be fine until the lights went out.

    Curled up in bed at night, those pangs of loss would overwhelm me. No one told me point-blank that I shouldn’t cry, but the last words whispered to nine-year-old me before boarding that first flight overseas was, “Be a good little girl for your mommy and daddy.”

    I wanted to be good girl, and everyone knew that good girls didn’t cry. No wonder Ruth told me that saying “I’m not fine” can take your faith apart. If you can’t hold faith and pain together, then being fine becomes your only option.

    As missionaries, have we fastened the value of our faith to the faulty condition of being fine?

    I’ll be the first to raise my hand here. As an MK, I wanted to please. I didn’t want to hinder the advancement of the gospel. But those honest hopes and fears eventually suffocated any sense of authenticity from my personal relationship with God. I forgot that the gospel of grace is for “I’m not fine” people. But I couldn’t go the Father in my pain and sorrow when I thought I had to hide it from him.

    “There’s a difference between resignation and submission to God’s will,” Ruth wisely told me. “Submission is when we wrestle and eventually say, ‘I will believe that you are good and faithful and true even if I don’t feel that way today.’”

    This truth is etched throughout Scripture, resounding of a different, more honest way of engaging in the Christian walk. Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane. David’s gut-wrenchingly honest laments in the Psalms. The apostle Paul’s declaration that the truth (not our tidiness) is what truly sets us free.

    Today, perhaps the invitation for you and me is to breathe in grace. Breathe out honesty. To allow ourselves space to wrestle. And to recognize that, in the end, a whispered admission of “I’m not fine” is what oftentimes actually holds our faith together.

    Quotes from Ruth Van Reken taken from personal interview with her, August 30, 2022.

    You can read more of my story in my new book, Stop Saying I’m Fine: Finding Stillness When Anxiety Screams.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Taylor Joy Murray is an MK, author, and speaker passionate about serving her generation in the areas of emotional health and spiritual formation. Her first book, Hidden in My Heart, which gives words to often unexpressed experiences and emotions of missionary kids, was published when she was just fourteen years old. Her new book, Stop Saying I’m Fine, was just released. She currently lives in Lynchburg, Virginia while completing her Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Connect with her on Instagram @__taylorjoy__ or on her website at www.taylorjoymurray.co.

     

    “I am a Professional Christian” (MKs and Their Parents’ Ministries Part 3)

    As an MK, I often dreaded going to Sunday School.

    Whether I was going to local church overseas or a supporting church during Home Assignment, the feeling associated with Sunday mornings was often one of pressure.

    You see, all of the other kids usually had a least one Christian parent who chose a “normal” profession. A Christian who was a doctor. A Christian who was a dentist. A Christian who was a banker. But in a sense, being a Christian was my parents’ profession, and with it came a host of expectations and assumptions.

    I often felt the sting of being different. I was in a different category of Christian. 

    Aren’t missionaries supposed to be professional Christians?

    With the do’s and don’ts associated with that perception, I often lost sight of God. Along with many MKs, I lost sight of truth.

    Here are four lies that MKs commonly believe.

     

    Lie #1: “I should be at another level of spiritual perfection.”

    I should already know.

    That was the subtle belief that often pervaded my thinking, especially on Sunday mornings. I should already know that passage. I should have already memorized that verse. I should already have made that connection. Timothy Sanford describes a common pattern in his book I Have To Be Perfect (And Other Parsonage Heresies). Looking back, I see how frequently it unfolded in my own life:

     – People knew that I was an MK and assumed that I knew more than the other children.
     – I picked up on these assumptions and concluded that maybe I was supposed to know.
     – Instead of looking stupid, I pretended like I did know.
     – They saw me pretending, concluded that I really did know, and continued to assume.
    – I continued to pretend.

     

    Lie #2: “Other people’s needs are more important than my own.”

    When reflecting on her overseas experience, one adult MK recently told me, “I was convinced everyone mattered above me and that I was at the bottom of the totem pole.” 

    I often watched my parents’ serve long hours. I saw their exhaustion, stress, and sacrifice. According to my nine-year-old thinking, I didn’t want to get in their way. In a skewed sense, I believed that my contribution to their ministry was to take my needs out of the equation. 

    “I felt like if I demanded their time, that I would be hindering my parents’ ministry,” an adult MK said. “I felt resentment building up and internalized it. It was toxic to me and our relationship…also to my spiritual growth. I felt shelved and not considered.”

     

    Lie #3: “God is only for others.”

    The essence of missions is taking the gospel to the unreached. Much of my childhood consisted of serving alongside my parents in their ministry. We shared the gospel with others. We taught the Bible to others. We organized outreaches for others. It was a truly beautiful experience that I would never trade.  

    However, I recently asked one MK if she felt like her parents valued time with her more than building relationships with nationals. This was her response: “I did not feel it was. I’m sure they cared very much, but no… I did not believe that at all.” 

    Although I never personally felt that way about my parents, my experiences often painted a version of God that was only for others. I knew God as more institutional than personal. He was for the Great Commission. He was in pursuit of the unreached people groups, the tribal villages in Africa, and bustling cities of Asia and Europe.

    But was I as important to God as those He had called us to serve? Was He in pursuit of me? 

     

    Lie #4: “I have to protect God’s reputation.”

    This skewed belief fueled my internal pressure to be happy all of the time and often caused me to envision God as disappointed with me when I wasn’t.

    As one adult MK described, “My perception of God was based on rule-following and tightly-held levels of unrealistic faith devotion. I can still hear my mom say, ‘If you exceed the speed limit, God will not bless your journey.’ Fortunately, I have since come to reshape that view and see Him much differently.”

    My fake happiness for God often prevented me from experiencing fullness of life with Him. This mindset of protecting God’s reputation acted like a spiritual defense for me, shielding me from feeling the brunt of my emotions, doubts, and questions.

    ******

    While these lies often swing between unhealthy extremes, I’m learning that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The truth isn’t an either/or situation, but a healthy understanding of the word “and.”

    The truth is that MKs are missionary kids AND they have spiritual journeys. They need reminding that there is space for them to grow in their journeys, apart from their parents. 

    The truth is that others’ needs are important AND their needs are important too. MKs need reminding that it’s okay to have needs and to express them.

    The truth is that God is passionately for others AND He’s passionately for MKs. He is the God of the institution and also the God of the individual. 

    The truth is that God doesn’t need MKs to protect His reputation. They aren’t the poster children for modern missions. They are His sons and daughters AND they are allowed to be completely honest with Him. God can protect His own reputation. 

    The truth is that MKs aren’t that different from all of the other kids in Sunday School. While missionaries may be professional Christians, MKs are aren’t and shouldn’t be. 

    They are just missionary kids beginning their Christian walks, and that is exactly where they are supposed to be.

     

    Read Part 1 here.

    Read Part 2 here.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~

    Taylor Murray is an MK and the author of two books on cross-cultural issues. Her upcoming book Stop Saying I’m Fine: Finding Stillness When Anxiety Screams will be releasing this fall. She is a familiar writer and speaker in the missions world and has served hundreds of young adults in the areas of soul care, pastoral counseling, and spiritual formation. Taylor is passionate about seeing her generation come awake to the love, presence, and action of God in their lives. Connect with her on Instagram here or visit her website at www.taylorjoyinwords.com.