Family in Ministry 4 of 5 – Nomadic Kids 1 (Annemie Grosshauser)

Thank you for joining us again in our series on family ministry.  In the last sessions, I’ve been looking at the importance of your marriage life, the foundation of rootedness, and security for your children.  And I encouraged you as parents to communicate unconditional love to your kids and to affirm them in their individuality.  It’s often easier to understand and agree with what you hear than to put it into practice, especially as you are probably stretched to your limits.  The last thing you want to do is to contemplate and change gear.  But I want to encourage you to make time and to reflect together with your partner on those many issues you might be struggling with now and to get a new perspective as you set the right priorities. 

Today, I want to focus on the identity of your children and examine their nomadic hearts.  This term might sound strange to you and you might doubt that your children, as Third Culture Kids, feel differently than kids who grew up in their home countries.  Well, let me start with a poem that our daughter Hannah has written.  She has lived for nearly sixteen years overseas in different countries.  By the time she went to Europe for her studies, she went through an intensive phase of dealing with her past.  She highly values and loves her cross-cultural upbringing, but she also deals with grief.  I’m glad that she found one outlet amongst others in expressing her heart by writing poems.  In this poem Hannah gives you a deep insight into the heart of a Third Culture Kid.  It is a soul search for identity that is shaped through many changes and places and relationships.  It expresses the wounds of a colourful life lost and the attempt to fit the pieces together to bridge the gap between the different worlds. 

Nomadic Heart

Can a nomadic heart be stilled?

Can it ever exchange tent and peg for a stone?

Can it cease from retracing the paths it once walked in an endless effort to fit the pieces it left behind?

Will there be a day when tears no longer flow at the mention of the life it lost?

Will reconstruction meant it gathers roots?

Countless horizons beckon come and yet this heart fears.

Memories get by realities that followed

Leading an unfamiliar mark on paths that once meant home

Emotional meanderings reflect the trail marked in the sand

Reaching far and wide, yet never resting

Distant voices echo the cries of this nomadic heart

Uniting across the distance what often seems in part

Though culture may be shared, each path serves to remind of the memories and dreams left behind or yet unreached.

At this point the poem gets another focus.  After Hannah has allowed her heart to grieve over an uprooted past, she can now acknowledge her healthy roots and the enriching gift of a cross-culture upbringing.  It reminds us of David’s Psalms when he was able to see God’s hand and purpose in his life after he had poured out his pain to Him.

Be still, oh my soul and see,

Your plant’s in a flower pot perhaps without a home, but your roots are still intact.

For someone new, the tender roots would not survive the frequent change of soil and light remaining inner standards or giving up instead

With your roots intact, blossom and see the beauty of a heart so colourful and free.

A unique creation raised through strategic cross-pollination

Have you sensed the searching in her heart?  Can you see expressions of that in your own child’s heart?  I think poems like this express more of the heart and soul of a TCK than any research could do.  Third Culture Kids grieve over the manifold losses and changes in their lives.  As much as they value their diverse and enriching past, they will still always live, to some extent, with a searching heart in a gypsy mentality.  You as parent can only catch a glimpse of the energy it takes them to fit the pieces together and to come to the place where they can find their own identity. 

Why am I raising this issue in the context of living as a family in ministry?  Well, family in ministry doesn’t only apply to your life overseas.  It doesn’t stop with landing and end with departing.  It begins with a calling and never ends.  Once you as parents respond to that calling, you are a family in ministry.  It will determine your lives and change them forever.  Therefore, the right preparations need to be done for going, staying, and leaving.  This is especially true for your children as they don’t have a clear ownership in terms of belonging.  Let me state once more what Dave Pollock writes:  “Children who grow up overseas live in a world filled with cross-cultural transitions and high mobility and therefore have a sense of being profoundly connected yet simultaneously disconnected with people and places around the world.”  As they grow up, they experience many losses specifically through chronically disrupted relationships.  You may wonder how you can support your kids in this process.  I think there are steps you as parents can take to bridge some of the past, to prepare the soil, and to smooth the transition, although you can never spare them the difficult times they themselves have to go through. 

Besides the importance of your home, which we have looked at in the last session, there are three areas that have essential influence in your kids’ lives in their search for identity.  This is your passport country, the host country, and times of furlough.  You might ask yourself how these three areas impact the lives of your kids in such a profound way. 

Today I want to focus on the first two areas and continue in our next session.  So what role is played by the passport country?  Although Third Culture Kids have a national passport, they often don’t necessarily identify themselves with that country.  It is their passport country, the place they spend their home leaves and where their relatives live to whom they feel more or less close to.  It is also the place where they usually go back to for education.  It is the place where they are hidden immigrants, which means that outwardly they look the same, but inwardly, they feel totally different.  In order to give Third Culture Kids a better understanding, a better appreciation and connection to that place, you as parents can build and support strong ties with the passport culture even before you leave and during your time overseas and on your furloughs.  To be able to identify with a country, you need to know its basic history, the language, cultural inheritance and values and be connected with friends.  I would therefore advise you as parents not to neglect these facts, to teach your kids some national history and geography, to speak your mother tongue in the house, to celebrate traditions at home and to encourage communication with friends and relatives.  This way they can develop some connection and appreciation for that place their parents call home.  In the long run, it will enrich your kids’ world view and lessen the gap during transition time and re-entry.  They will not feel as total outsiders, but will be able to relate and communicate at least to a certain level.

What about the host country?  I’m sure you will agree that children living overseas need to have strong roots and meaningful connections in both cultures-the passport one and the one they are raised in.  Depending on your placement as parents, this can sometimes be quite difficult especially when you live in a major city.  Your kids will most likely attend national schools or if you live rather rural, they will be home-schooled.  Naturally, they will find their friends among other expatriate kids which don’t challenge them to integrate into the local culture.  This is not necessarily wrong, but it can create a gap and tension between your cross-cultural ministry with local friends and the life of your kids who might not have much local contact with the host culture. 

What can you do to strengthen ties?  Again, the same is true like for the passport country.  You can encourage them to learn the language at least to a certain level.  You can teach them about the country’s history, their culture, and belief system, but even more important than this, is to relate to local people and to learn to appreciate them and their culture.  Otherwise your children will live in an isolated bubble and later regret what they have missed out on. 

It is needless to say that you as parents have a very important part in their cross-cultural integration.  You are the models.  If you are at peace with where God has sent you, if you love and serve the people of your host culture, then your kids will be infused to do the same. 

Next time I will continue with the influence the host country has on the process specifically looking at the kid’s own involvement in ministry.  I want to encourage you to reflect for a moment - in which of the two countries do your kids have stronger roots?  Then meditate on possible shortcomings and how you can help them to feel more integrated.  Pray with your partner and ask God to give you a sensitive heart.