Tag: parenting TCKs

Taking the Hypocrisy Out of Home Ministry Assignment

by Michèle Phoenix

Hypocrisy is a topic we don’t like to address in the missionary community—perhaps because of the unspoken reality that a little bit of deception has sometimes proven to be good for ministry. (I’m not condoning it, just acknowledging it.) But where does “putting your best foot forward” end and “misrepresenting yourself” begin?

The line is blurred in this world where personal relationships are often financial partnerships too.

If there’s one chapter of ministry that disguises the line even more, it’s HMA.

HMA (Home Ministry Assignment) is a necessary endeavor. It’s a chance for missionaries and their children to reconnect with their passport culture, to visit family and friends they haven’t seen in a while and to check in with churches and individuals who support their work.

Unfortunately, without careful management and execution, HMA can also teach observant children some unintentional lessons about relative honesty and incomplete disclosure.

We MKs learn the tricks of the trade by watching our parents.

We see them responding with a polite smile to people making comments they fiercely disagree with. We see them being more friendly with potential donors than they’d be with the grocer or a relative. We see them saying eloquent prayers in public that they’d never utter at home. We see them laughing with too much vigor or accepting offense with too much willingness—all in what we assume is an attempt to keep everyone happy…and generous.

Note: I don’t think most people set out to misrepresent who they are or what they think. It’s just one of the ways we can go off-track if we let the approval of others or fundraising mandates become the driving force of our HMA efforts.

Many MKs develop a flawed Philosophy of Furlough at an early age:

  • If supporters like us, they’ll support us.
  • If they don’t like us, they’ll stop supporting us.
  • If they stop supporting us, we’ll have to leave the field and Life-As-We-Know-It will come to an end.

Because a common MK trait is taking on the burdens of our world, we assume that the survival of Life-As-We-Know-It depends in great part on us.

So we enter into the HMA experience feeling the pressure to influence the outcome, even if that means being something other than our true selves. We try our hardest to be cute, winsome, talented, polite and well-behaved. We’ll eat the mushrooms we hate so as not to offend our hosts. We’ll recite John 3:16 in four languages any time we’re asked. We’ll do it all because we’re pretty sure we’re the persuasive props brought along for that purpose.

We live out the cynical premise that performance plus schmoozing equals getting to return home at the end of HMA.

Living in that distorted truth can be debilitating.

When I was sixteen, I sat in a service with my parents after a pre-church morning that had bristled with marital tension. I listened to my dad giving a heartfelt sermon while my mom still fumed in the pew beside me. I braced myself to sing the song that, in my mind, was supposed to “seal the deal” and ensure continued support. The responsibility was an anvil in my stomach as I got up to sing “There is a Savior” with sweet, practiced conviction. A couple ladies pulled out their Kleenexes as I finished and I felt a thrill of victory. My parents got up to make a final statement, standing close and smiling. The church applauded. Successful performance. Life-As-I-Knew-It had been preserved.

So wrong. So un-Christlike.

This mode of influence can be easily normalized in any field where image yields profit. In ministry, however, it takes on spiritual overtones…as if God Himself required it of us. When hypocrisy is attributed to God’s expectations for the sake of his work, it becomes even more sinister and destructive.

Marriage trouble? Don’t ever mention it. Missionary discord? Never refer to it. Ministry discouragement and attrition? Not something we discuss. Problems with lust, money-mismanagement, unethical behaviors? Nobody needs to know. Why? Because even we have bought into the myth that ministry requires that we present a certain image in order to fund our work.

The repercussions of this perspective on honesty and truth can be far-reaching.

If MKs have spent their childhood observing relationships in which approval (and its payoff) is obtained through something that looks like insincerity—or at the very least, careful image management—should we not be concerned about the honesty they’ll bring to the rest of their relationships? How will they find the courage and confidence to risk showing their flaws? And who will they lose to their inability to do so?

In my work with Missionaries’ Kids, I’ve encountered far too many who return to their passport culture to live long-term, believing that relationships will only be achieved through the same kind of selective self-revelation they saw in their parents on HMA. It’s a subconscious tendency that can lead to relational failure.

Early exposure to hypocrisy can affect our ability to be real with ourselves too.

We so keenly feel the pressure to live up to the expectations of others that some of us resort to hiding behind strategically crafted masks, berating ourselves when we let them slip.

We become fierce in our fakeness. Fearful too. And the habit can get so ingrained that we’re not even aware we’re living according to a destructive mandate to be something other than ourselves. It can prevent us from seeking help, maturing and finding an identity born of integrity.

At its worst, our hypocrisy—even just perceived hypocrisy—can eventually cause MKs to dismiss God, Christians and faith itself.

When the God of Truth is represented by envoys who rely on untruth to “get the job done,” it can cause a destabilizing disconnect that skews one’s outlook on all spiritual things. I’ve seen it happen. It is heart-wrenchingly tragic when it does.

How can we begin to reverse this trend? I’ll offer a handful of suggestions below, but please contribute yours too in the comments space beneath this post.

Change must begin with parents—they’re the ones who demonstrate authenticity and set the tone for HMA.

In everyday life:

  • Be real and vulnerable with people you can trust…especially in public. (Dare to defy the unspoken “be perfect or pretend” missionary motto.)
  • Demonstrate how honesty and vulnerability are healthy, especially when they lead to help, healing, and wholeness.
  • Set God’s expectations and grace as a standard, not a church’s or supporter’s approval.

During HMA:

  • Make sure your MKs know that you’re the adult, you’re the public persona, you’re the one shouldering the burden, the effort and the outcome.
  • Relieve your children of any responsibility for the results of your fundraising.
  • Tell your children what your financial situation really is, in terms they understand, so they don’t live in fear of immediate bankruptcy.
  • Validate your kids’ talents, but don’t use them as mere strategies and fundraising tools.
  • Give them the option not to participate in your HMA meetings or attend youth classes. They need to know that they have some degree of control over their part of your furlough. (You may need to clearly express this to supporters and church leaders too, if they pressure your children to be more involved than they want to be.)
  • Make sure your MKs know that you don’t expect them to change in order to be liked by potential donors. The same behavioral rules that apply behind closed doors apply on HMA.
  • Demonstrate Who and what really motivates your exchanges with the people you interact with—God and relationship, not dollar signs.

I’d be remiss not to mention the role of The church in addressing this issue.

Missionaries who have dared to be real in public settings have sometimes been met with judgment and disapproval by people who think they should be paragons of strength, resilience, virtue and unblemished character. Expressing concerns about team discord or personal challenges on the field has too often been interpreted as being unsuited for ministry rather than prompting a collaborative pursuit of solutions and healing.

In order for missionaries to be real, churches need to allow them to be fully human. The following is an incomplete list of suggestions. Again—please add yours in the comments at the end of this post.

  • Give missionaries permission to experience struggles. (You’re supporting real people who are just as susceptible to sin and weakness as anyone else.)
  • Out of relationship, ask personal questions with loving intentions.
  • Offer a safe place in which they can voice their failures and find compassionate help.
  • When they visit you with their MKs, demand nothing from the children except that they be children accompanying Mom and Dad. Let the family decide how much they’ll be involved.

I can’t end without saying that I’ve seen countless missionary families who have lived authentically on HMA! I’d go so far as to say that a majority of them do, sometimes at the cost of being misunderstood. It takes courage to be real in the face of unreasonable expectations. Let’s affirm and support each other toward that goal for the sake of the children who are watching and learning.

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Raised in France by a Canadian father and an American mother, Michèle is a mentor, writer and speaker with a heart for MKs. She taught for 20 years at Black Forest Academy (Germany) before launching her own ministry advocating for TCKs. She now travels globally to consult and teach on topics related to this unique people group. She loves good conversations, French pastries, mischievous students and Marvel movies.

Making home an emotional oasis for your TCKs

by Tanya Crossman

I receive a lot of questions as I travel and speak about TCKs, but the question people most often ask is this: “If there was one thing you would recommend parents do to help their TCKs, what would it be?”

My short answer? Make your home an emotional oasis for your TCKs.

By that I mean creating a safe space for your TCKs to express the whole range of feelings and preferences stemming from their varied collections of cultural influences.

One reason the family unit can provide this space is that most families travel together. Home can therefore be a place where all the sources of an individual TCK’s linguistic and cultural adaptations are known.

An example of this is the phenomenon of sibling languages. 40% of TCKs born after 1985* reported sharing a unique dialect with their siblings, made up from the mix of different languages they had been exposed to. For one family, it was a mix of their native Finnish, the English they spoke at school, and the local language of the country they lived in. For others, it was favourite phrases picked up in five or more countries that peppered their speech.

The one place these TCKs could speak freely, knowing their words would be accepted and understood without question, was with their siblings.

 

A place to simply be themselves – and learn who that is

Daily life for most TCKs involves navigating two, three or even more different sets of cultural expectations as they move between home, school, and their host country. That’s in addition to any picked up in other locations. This means many TCKs grow up learning to adopt different cultural identities in different situations, shifting between them effortlessly as a natural life skill.

There are many advantages to this! A downside is identity confusion. Am I all of these pieces? One of them? Something completely separate? A 19 year old TCK from France explained it this way:*

“Because I always had to control what I said and what I talked about so I’d be accepted by kids my age, I still struggle to understand who I am. I have no clue what my true personality is and what is a habit I learned to fit in…I’m not sure how to untangle myself from years of camouflage, because I don’t have a clue where I end and the fake begins.”

Making your home an emotional oasis is about recognising this struggle, and creating a space in which your TCKs can remove their camouflage. It is about working to give them a place in which to work out who they are without it.

 

A place they can say anything

Almost everywhere TCKs go, there are opinions they can’t voice, languages they can’t speak, loves they can’t share. Making your home an emotional oasis means creating one safe place in which your TCKs can say all the things they must hold back elsewhere. It means letting them know that you, of all people in the world, will hear what their hearts are saying.

Making your home an emotional oasis means making a commitment to see life through your child’s eyes. To hear what they say, and ask questions about where they’re coming from.

To hear not “I hate this country” but rather “life here is hard for me”.

Not “I don’t like your language” but rather “I can’t express my whole self in any one language”.

Not “This move was a mistake” but rather “I am grieving what I have lost”.

Making your home an emotional oasis does not mean you can never gently correct a child’s negative attitude. It does not mean a child should be permitted to speak with wanton disrespect. But it does mean making your starting place an assumption that the difficult things your child says are meaningful, once you uncover the emotion behind them.

For one family I spent time with, this meant recognising their daughter’s uncharacteristic outbursts of anger as an expression of grief, as she struggled to adapt to life in a “homeland” she had no memories of. For these parents, creating safe space meant telling their daughter she was free to speak whatever language she wanted at home – in this case, the English she was more familiar with – rather than trying to help her practise the “mother tongue” she stumbled over everywhere else.

 

Now for the bad news…

While this sounds lovely, reality can be a challenge. This is because a true emotional oasis needs freedom.

Freedom to speak different languages.

Freedom to express opinions about different countries – both positive and negative.

Freedom to share emotional reactions to various events – or have no emotional reaction.

What if your child says they prefer the way things are done in your host country to your passport country? What if they prefer the language they speak at school to the language that is most familiar to you? What if they don’t enjoy your comfort foods and places? What if they don’t seem to appreciate the cultural values you grew up with? An 18 year old TCK from Zambia explained this struggle, saying:*

“I feel my passport country is my parents’ country, not mine. I refer to it as the ‘motherland’, not my homeland. My parents tried to make me eat traditional food and expected me to know the language, but it’s really hard.”

The cost of making your home an emotional oasis is that your children might use that freedom to say things you don’t like, things that highlight the gap between their experience of the world and your own. Even when parents are deeply committed to making safe space for their children, this can be hard. There’s a sacrifice involved. It’s painful.

It’s okay to be sad that your child doesn’t feel what you feel, that you can’t share everything with them. In fact, it’s really important to recognise that sadness. There’s a grief in not being able to share all your emotional connections to “home” with your children.

For one mother I know, this meant slowly coming to terms with this grief as one of the consequences of an international life. She realised that it wasn’t that her children “didn’t care” about her home country and home town, but that they didn’t have the same emotional attachments she did. She learned to allow herself to feel sad for their lack of shared connection, without trying to force her children to act out something they didn’t feel.

 

The reward?

Making your home an emotional oasis means providing a space for your children to truly be themselves. When you as a parent are the one providing this space, it means you will get to know your children in a deeper and truer way than many people in their lives. This is a precious mutual gift – one you give to them, and one you receive from them.

 

* Statistics and quotes come from Misunderstood: The Impact of Growing Up Overseas in the 21st Century

 

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Tanya Crossman spent most of her childhood as a local in Australia and most of her adulthood as an expat in China (with stops in the U.S. and Cambodia). Along the way she unexpectedly turned into an expert on millennial TCKs, wrote a book, and starting travelling the world to speak on her favourite topic: why TCKs are awesome and how to serve them well. After completing an MDiv in Australia, she recently got married (to a TCK) and moved back to Beijing. Now she’s enjoying rediscovering everything she loves about China! She can be found online far too often, usually on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and occasionally at her website.

Parenting in Real Life: Ministry Version

by Mandi Hart

As long as I can remember,  I have been captivated by the thought that we reproduce who we are in others. We will reproduce not only what we say, but who we are. It is something that is ‘caught’ and not ‘taught’. Apple trees will reproduce apples and orange trees will produce oranges. I first heard that concept many years ago when I was learning about discipling others and the teacher was telling us that we need to live out of who we are in Christ.

Joseph Chilton Pearce says that what we are teaches the child more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become. We really do reproduce who we are in our children even when we don’t want to admit it. Our children know without being taught whether you are sincere or not. They see through our masks in ways that adults often can’t.

One of the challenges I have encountered since becoming a missionary is that we pray for the work on the field, we plan various activities on how to reach those who do not know Jesus, and our conversations centre around the gospel most of the day. And then we come home. Our children need us, and my husband and I discovered that we had poured ourselves out to their detriment during the day.

Our children go to a ‘secular’ school. We prayed as a family and all agreed the Lord was leading them to be around children their own age from all spheres of life. As a matter of fact, this helps us. It is a great reminder that we are the primary source for teaching our children about the Lord. The Old Testament reminds of that as well. It’s so easy to let the churches or schools teach our children about God and His ways.

One evening, my husband and I looked at each other and shook our heads in sadness. We realised that we were too tired from all our conversations during the day to speak to our teens about the Lord. Then, one day, we had a valuable discussion about it and understood how purposeful we really needed to be with them.

We have to parent intentionally. The result was that we changed a few things in our schedules so that we could be more available to our children. We stopped having afternoon meetings at our home and removed many of the work items from our lounge and dining room. Our home had started feeling like a missions base and not a safe place.

Within a short period of time, we started to notice a few changes in our children’s hearts. We had more energy to have those spiritual discussions them too. All of us started to enjoy doing Bible studies again, and we spent more time discipling them.

Whilst we don’t always have it right, we’ve learned some things through this experience:

1. Keep your home a haven — a safe place from the world (for you and your children).

2. Set some boundaries around your work so that your children feel like they can enjoy being at home.

3. Make sure that you have enough energy left to spend time with them. You need to intentionally invest spiritually into your children.

4. Admit your mistakes and be real.

5. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead you as you parent and love them.

Being a missionary doesn’t mean that my mission field is only ‘out there’; it starts at home with my children. They are the ones I want to minister to first. After all, I will reproduce who I am in them rather that what I say or do.

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Mandi Hart lives in Cape Town, South Africa but carries the nations in her heart. She and her husband, Neil, are the leaders of All Nations Cape Town and have been involved in church planting, discipleship, and missionary training for over a decade. Mandi holds a certification in counseling and a degree in communications and has ministered to mothers and families in a number of ways over the years, including leading a moms group of over 75 moms of babies and toddlers. She has run parenting workshops in Africa & the Middle East and thinks that every stage of parenting is the best stage (she currently has two teenagers). Mandi loves spontaneous adventures, traveling, and sharing a delicious meal with friends and has just released her book Parenting With Courage.