29 minute read
Interact - September 2020 (Special Edition)
Restarting the Engines
Ruth E. Van Reken
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I live in Indianapolis, home of the famous Indy 500 motor car race. Each year (except this one due to COVID-19!), 250,000 people gather and wait with great anticipation to hear the iconic words blare from the loud speaker, “Gentlemen and lady (or ladies depending on the year), start your engines!” At that command, the sound of roaring engines fills the air, the racers follow the pace car for one lap and then zoom away.
No one knows how the race will turn out, but one thing is certain: every car that begins will need time in the pits where a team changes the tires, refills the gas tank, and tweaks whatever settings need adjustment to make the car run even better than before. Without these moments of refilling and recalibration, the car will never make it to victory lane. Pit stops aren’t a sign of weakness but wisdom. They don’t mean that the original design or strategies were wrong, but racing teams know that resting on past success alone is not enough to ensure a successful future. There is always more to learn and refine for the journey ahead. After the tune-up, the driver restarts the engine and returns to the active racing lanes with one goal in mind: to see the checkered flag come down as he or she crosses the finish line knowing the race is successfully done.
Time for MK Care Recalibration?
If we think of the work we do with MK care as another type of race, we can see this time of Interact being relaunched as a good time for our own pit stop. In order to continue running the race before us with endurance as Hebrews 12:1 admonishes us, let’s take a moment to see the strengths of our race so far. Then, let’s consider what new obstacles or opportunities might be ahead and what adjustments or recalibrations we might need to make to run an even stronger race to the finish line in the future.
MK Care Phase One: Where We've Been
Looking back, it is right to feel thankful. Before the first International Conference on Missionary Kids (ICMK) held in Manila in October 1984, no mission organization that I know of had any type of formal MK care programs. Before then, many in missions didn’t believe that MKs had any particular issues that might relate to their globally mobile lifestyle. In fact, most discussions or articles on this topic presumed that the privileges of their lives were many (which they are) and, if MKs focused on them, these privileges would overshadow any perceived challenges.
After ICMK Quito (1987) and ICMK Nairobi (1989) which followed the initial conference in Manila, perspectives began to change. While the main focus of ICMK Manila centered on considering new options for MK education, the conferences in Quito and Nairobi created more awareness of the wider arenas of care needed to give meaningful, holistic care to MKs. At this point, many mission organizations created new positions so MK care providers could begin to find ways to meet some of the identified needs.
Interact magazine began in 1991 to continue developing new understanding and awareness of the gifts and challenges that often come with the MK experience. With Janet Blomberg as editor, this publication became a “pace car” for our community as many previously unexplored topics came to light through the ground-breaking articles published there. Go to https://interactionintl.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/01/Interact-Article-Index-by- Subject.pdf and check out the back issues.
Then something akin to a flat tire happened. Soon after David Pollock, one of the pioneers in the MK Care movement, died in 2004, the voice of Interact also became silent. It looked like the final pit stop for this important pace car, even though other vehicles continued rounding the track and running as well as they could.
Where We Are
Thankfully, the pit crew has found a way to fix the flat tire and Interact is rejoining the race. As with any pit stop, these silent years have not negated the past but many new aspects have been developing in the field of MK Care that will now enable our pace car to guide us more clearly in the future.
Basically, it seems the race that is MK care has completed Phase One. This includes:
-Awareness of the topic and the issues involved has turned into action.
-Organizations and international schools have developed helpful programs.
-Families have been educated in how to make wise decisions regarding education and transitions for their children.
Now, as Interact prepares to restart its engine and rejoin the race, it’s time to consider more closely the changes happening in missions and what adjustments we may need to make in order to better complete MK Care Phase Two. God gives each generation something fresh to do that builds on the past while accomplishing his purposes for the present and preparing for the future. This is a good time to stop and listen to some of what might be God’s new vision for MK Care personnel to consider. While the previous generation (mine!) is moving off the stage, God will use the next generation taking our place (many of you!) to provide new authors, new articles, new ideas, and new thinking to accomplish his purposes for what is still ahead.
Discoveries During Our Pit Stop
As the world in general has dramatically changed in the last few decades, so has the world of missions. When ICMK began in 1984, most missionaries were Westerners and MKs generally went to some type of MK school where virtually all students were MKs. Often, these were also boarding schools. Mother and father usually carried passports from the same country, they frequently served a lifetime in one country overseas, and most went out under clearly defined mission agencies.
Think of what has happened since then. One of the most significant changes in these intervening years is that now we have international Christian workers coming from all over the world as well as going all over the world. John Barclay has done an amazing amount of research and writing on the exploding number of missionaries and MKs who are coming from New Sending Countries (NSCs) such as India, Korea, Singapore, Nigeria, etc. and how they may soon outnumber (or already outnumber) those coming from the more traditional Old Sending Countries (OSCs) such as England, the United States, Canada, and Europe.
When we look at what were our traditional Western-based MK schools, we see that many have become some form of an “international Christian school” or simply another international school. A lower percentage of the students in these schools are MKs than before while local or expat children from other sectors fill the seats. Educators and staff who were once all expats now include local staff as well. Homeschooling, internet classes, and local schools have all reshaped the MK educational options across the board for these MKs from OSC. On the other hand, for MKs from NSCs, the challenges of receiving basic education in ways that encourage family stability as well as academic learning are still great. Online courses or homeschooling may not be offered in their language. Many NSC MKs attend poorly funded boarding schools in their home countries while parents serve in remote areas. Michael Pollock and others organized a pre-conference workshop called “The Shepherd’s Table” before the recent Synergy conference for MK Care providers and educators in September 2019. The purpose was to discuss what could be done for the larger community of MKs now in the tent. That is a major, positive recalibration of MK care occurring in our current pit stop.
There are also changes in many family demographics. Increasingly, mom and dad may not carry passports from the same country. Others may share a passport but have different racial heritages. Instead of a lifetime in one host country, many missionaries now have shorter careers in general and often live in more than one host country. Some go to foreign lands for the sake of Jesus, but they go either independently or in some other nontraditional way with no formal title but with similar hearts and sense of calling.
Christopher O’Shaughnessy (Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between, 2014)
These changes mean that today’s MKs represent countless nationalities and come from vastly different home cultures. There is no longer one national or racial prototype for who is an MK. What new challenges and opportunities do these things make for our community? To have a meaningful discussion about all of these matters, it’s important we begin by clarifying and enlarging our language and concepts so they more accurately reflect these changing realities. Without this, our discussions can only be confusing or not include all who need our care. A few questions to start us off.
Who are MKs?
It seems almost a ‘no brainer’ to ask for a definition of what it means to be an MK since those initials stand for “missionary kid”. Doesn’t the term alone define MK as being a child of a missionary? you wonder.
Perhaps, but perhaps not. A prior question might be, “In today’s world, who is counted as a missionary?” Do we include only children whose parents go our under official mission agencies or as independents specifically for the purpose of ‘sharing the gospel of Jesus’? If so, what about children of those who do not go overtly as missionaries yet pursue international business or other international career because they seek to follow the Great Commission and go into all the world as salt and light for Christ into places traditional missionaries are not allowed? Where and how do children in these families and circumstances fit into our discussions on MK care?
In addition to this population, I have met young people whose parents are officially missionaries who say to me, “You know, I’m not a real MK.” I ask, “You’re not? Why?” They reply, “Because we never left our passport country.” Are they right?
When MKs say things like this to me, I tell them they are wrong. In my thinking, if their parents are 'official' missionaries of any kind, they are MKs. This includes those whose parents work with different local ethnic communities or even work in the organization’s headquarters for their entire career. But then, when telling that story to others working in MK care, they have disagreed with me. They say these children are correct that they aren’t MKs if they never went outside their country! So, who is right? Are MKs defined by parental roles or geography?
This is a critically important question if we are to think holistically about our global community. John Barclay states that India has more MKs than almost any other country, including OSC countries. However, because they have so many different subcultures and languages all within the large expanse of the country of India, many Indian MKs never leave their passport country yet change cultures as radically within the borders of India as do MKs who go to totally different countries.
Ruth Van Reken
Sadly, these non-internationally mobile MKs, including ones in far distant places from many of us, have too often been a hidden community. With their growing number, however, we can no longer afford to ignore them. We need to consider with more intentionality how being a “domestic MK” compares and contrasts with "international MKs,” including any particular challenges or opportunities they may have in this context.
If, on the other hand, we agree with those who say these children aren’t MKs if they have not traveled to another country, then do we have a name for them? Again, what about the children of those whose parents work in non-traditional mission roles? How do we include all of these in our MK care vision or do we simply agree with those who tell me that they don’t belong at all?
Who Are TCKs?
By the early 1980s, Dave Pollock began using sociologist Ruth Useem’s term third-culture kid as another way to look at MKs. In her writings, Dr. Useem refers to TCKs as “children who accompany their parents into another culture.” In 1986, Dave wrote his now classic TCK definition “A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture …” Before the TCK term became part of our language, each sector or group whose members were raising children overseas thought they were the only ones who had particular realities to deal with, such as questions of “Where is home?” and “Where do I belong?” Families in the military thought it was somehow related to their kids being “military brats.” The foreign service called themselves “foreign service kids.” Missions called our kids “missionary kids” or “MKs.” Those in the corporate world often called themselves a name connected to their parents’ career such as “Aramco Brats.”
Once it became clear that all of these groups shared the experience of going into another culture with their parents, it became easier for people like Ruth Useem and Dave Pollock to look for common themes. This is how Dave’s classic TCK Profile of the common benefits and challenges from this experience developed. Once these common characteristics were identified, each sector could also look to see what was specific to their group. For example, one additional challenge in the missions community is that no matter how humanly successful MKs are, if they have given up their faith, that ‘failure’ often negates any other sense of success in a way that isn’t an issue for other sectors. At any rate, this is what our first attempt to identify commonalities as well as distinctives between TCK sectors looked like in MK Care Phase One.
Third Culture Kids: Potential Commonalities and Differences ©Ruth E. Van Reken, 1996 all rights reserved
Unfortunately, in those early days of looking at this population, neither Useem or Pollock included in their definitions that the reason parents were going into other cultures related to a career choice they had made rather than for some other reasons such as permanent immigration. In addition, they didn’t mention that this other culture was also in another country. In those early days of intercultural awareness, likely both were assumed.
In today’s world, as more families and children are globally or culturally mobile for many different reasons, this has led to endless discussions of who can be counted as “true TCKs.” Does Dave Pollock’s classic TCK Profile relate equally to children of refugees as to the child of an ambassador? Does it apply to children of minorities who go to school in another culture other than the one they return to at home each evening? Maybe. Maybe not. How do factors such as choice, power, privilege, or economic status impact those who have experienced what Donnyale Ambrosine calls a ‘culturally fluid’ childhood?
Over time, the term third-culture kid has begun to lose its original meaning in the general public. In many places, it has become a catchall phrase for all children who grow up or grew up with any sort of international or cross-cultural background during childhood. Some researchers have begun to challenge the concept of TCK itself as the concepts of culture are changing. They say that the number of variables of those claiming to be TCKs have become too numerous for the type of research that needs to be done. These discussions are fair and necessary, but for now this is where we have been and are.
Are MK and TCK Completely Interchangeable Terms?
While I am all for MKs realizing their story is part of a greater whole, clarity in how we use these terms is important. If we agree that anyone who is the child of a missionary is an MK, then “domestic MKs” (those who are children of home missionaries) are not necessarily traditional TCKs if their parents didn’t go to another culture.... Ironically, those whose parents serve in some form of international tentmaking ministry may not identify at all with the MK term, but fully embrace the TCK language. We must also remember that all traditional TCKs are not MKs. Children of diplomats, international business, and military are also bona fide TCKs. It’s getting complicated!
While some may feel such a discussion is nit-picking, it is important so that we do not inadvertently create a dialog that essentially excludes domestic MKs by presuming that the TCK Profile in its entirety applies to all MKs. Conversely, since all TCKs are not MKs, we need to be sure that what we are calling ‘TCK’ characteristics in our MKs are common to traditional TCKs of all sectors rather than sector specific to us as a missionary community. Full disclosure: As we begin to look towards recalibrating MK Care for the future, I am presuming that MKs raised in any context mentioned above—internationally, domestically, invisibly—are included. The question then is “How do we take better care of all MKs no matter the context in which they live it?”
MK Care Phase Two: Where Do We Need to Go?
Having assessed the past and present in our pit stop, the question remains, “How do we prepare to continue running an even stronger race going forward than we have run to this point? How do we remain active drivers in the car as we have been instead of fans in the stands?”
Ruth Van Reken
That is an important question if we consider that God gave this type of internationally mobile childhood to missions to think about and study long before most of the world at large knew it was happening? The earliest writing I have seen on this topic came from Allen Parker who was then the principal of Woodstock School in India. In 1936, he wrote his dissertation for his master’s degree at the University of Chicago on “An Analysis of the Factors in the Personality Development of Children of Missionaries.” In this paper, Parker mentions many characteristics of what is now part of the TCK Profile. TCK pioneer, Dave Pollock, went to Kenya and worked as a dorm parent at Rift Valley Academy where his interest in studying the TCK experience blossomed. The point being that those in our community need to continue to think, study, and share what we have learned as well as to learn from others. We must not abdicate our voice or place in the larger world and conversation even as we care for our own MKs.
The first recalibration we need to do is to tweak the TCK definition so that it more properly reflects those initially studied. By clarifying that term, we then have meaningful language to look at some of the questions we raised in MK Care Phase One regarding MKs per se. In time, it can help us compare and contrast the TCK part of our experience with others who have other types of cross-cultural childhoods. Hopefully, this will begin to move the conversation from the question, ‘Am I a real TCK or not?’ to seeing what universal issues might be for all children among many cultural communities. In a world where questions of identity are becoming endemic, perhaps we can help answer the ‘But why is this such a global happening?’ as we share lessons learned from our particular story and studies.
For all these reasons, Michael Pollock and I suggested the following update in the third edition of the Third Culture Kids book: “A traditional thirdculture kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her first eighteen years of life accompanying parents into a country, or countries, outside either/both parents' passport country(ies) due to the parent’s choice of work or advanced training.” Academic researcher Anastasia Lijadi clarified the definition for a research project and has defined TCKs for the Oxford Bibliography this way. “Third culture kids (TCK) are individuals who follow their parents on their overseas assignment, relocating to one (or more) countries for a period of time with an option to either repatriate or stay abroad if permitted.”
We realize some you just passed out as it seems we are messing with the holy grail to make any changes here! Some have called our TCK book ‘The TCK Bible,’ but I guarantee you it is neither infallible nor unchangeable! Take heart in what Ruth Useem herself said when Dave Pollock and I tweaked some ways she had described things for our first edition and sent that portion of our writing to her to ask if she was okay with our changes. Dr. Useem replied, “I am a social scientist and I realize that over time ideas change. Go ahead.” And so we have!
Ruth Van Reken
Once we have even reluctantly allowed a refinement to be made to our most beloved definitions, we must also accept that in today’s world, while the terms MK and TCK are useful to our discussions, perhaps they are no longer enough. We need to enlarge the tents of our language to include others who are also trying to define and normalize their experiences, often wondering if they are or are not “true TCKs.”
Who are CCKs?
Since 2002, I have been using another model in the larger community of TCKs where I most often circulate. For years, people had been telling me they related to the characteristics of the TCK Profile, particularly in terms of questions of identity, but they had had quite a different life experience than what I described for TCKs. They wanted to know if they were TCKs or not?
In response, I asked them to tell me their story. Always there was some cross-cultural component to it, even if they did not grow up in another country or have parents with an international career. Perhaps their grandparents were immigrants, or parents were bi-national, even though they had grown up primarily in one country. I never knew exactly how to answer them about their feelings of “TCKness” because I didn’t want to exclude people. However, how could we study all of these things under one name when there were so many variables?
The tipping point of feeling ‘I have to do something to try and figure out a way to look at this more holistically’ came after one came after one frustrating day at a local Indianapolis school. Educators there wanted to tout their “diversity” program as multicultural but seemed to disdain the topic of TCKs. They felt TCKs had nothing to do with diversity or multiculturalism since the TCKs at their school were primarily white. How could they be “diverse”?
When I returned to their school the next day, I explained I wanted to re-frame our ongoing discussion through a different model and language than either of us was using. Perhaps then we could look at the topics of multiculturalism/diversity and third culture kids through a common and fresh lens instead of presupposing we already knew what we were talking about. And so was born the concept of cross-cultural kids (CCKs)—children who interact meaningfully with different cultural worlds for any reason during their first 18 developmental years of life. An adult CCK (ACCK) is one who grew up in any type of cross-cultural experience.
Here is an expanded model of what I first scratched out in 2002. Certainly, it is not exhaustive for defining all cross-cultural childhoods but perhaps a beginning point.
CCK Subgroups and Subsets: The Cross-Cultural Kid Model Expanded ©Ruth E. Van Reken, original model 2002, expanded model 2017, all rights reserved
A most unexpected thing happened when I initially started to use this model in my presentations. First, many listeners found themselves invited to the conversation personally whereas before they could only be observers. On the first day I used it in that Indianapolis school, one of the educators listening came up with that “Aha!” look of excitement on his face. He talked about how difficult his move from Boston to Indianapolis had been for him and his children, but they didn’t know why it had been worse than they expected. Now he could see his children were domestic TCKs and could understand some of the reasons it had been so hard for them as Boston had a very different culture than Indianapolis.
In this model, the cross-cultural aspect is not defined by geography but by experience. What is the reason for their cross-cultural interactions? In many ways, this is simply an expansion of how the TCK model itself grew. In addition, as you can see from the above sample, each of these larger circles have subsets which can also be studied individually. In the end, these findings can help us compare and contrast different experiences within each particular type of experience as well as adding more understanding to the whole. My hope is that, with continuing discussion, we will find what is shared across these cross-cultural experiences and what is more specific to each type so that, again, we can have a more efficient and effective conversation about what is going on in our world.
The second time I used this model was for the diversity program of a large international corporation. During the Q&A period, a woman asked if someone could be in more than one circle? Since I hadn’t considered that possibility before, I asked her to explain the question. She told us that she and her husband were both Indian but from two different areas of the country. Neither spoke the other’s first language so English was their language at home. They immigrated to the U.S. where they became not only immigrants but part of a minority community. In time, they went to Europe for the husband’s job with an international corporation. When her children went to school in the U.S., it was an entirely different culture than the world they met at home each night. Where were her kids in this model? Unbelievably (to me at least), they were experientially in five, possibly six, circles: children of cross-cultural parents, potentially domestic TCKs before moving to the States, then they became immigrants, third culture kids, minorities, and educational CCKs.
Thus, I began to see not only new ways of naming experiences but the growing cultural complexity so many children face, including our MKs of all backgrounds. It also gives us a model to look at the growing cultural complexity of many of the MKs and other TCKs in our community of faith.
Think of it. Everyone we have already mentioned can be included. Domestic MKs are right there with other domestic TCKs who, for whatever reason, interact with different cultural worlds around them without leaving their country. Internationally mobile MKs are part of the traditional TCK group. For international MKs, their cultural voyage takes place between cultures in different countries. For domestic MKs, they may also go to different cultures in their country as the Indian MKs do, or they may navigate between the missionary subculture their parents are part of at the home office and the larger dominant culture surrounding them. For the “secret MKs,” they can simply rest in the traditional TCK circle or any other they would like to claim. In addition, we look at this model and realize we can no longer think of our MKs in one- or two- dimensional levels. Many now come from multicultural families or are of mixed racial heritage. Other MKs may also be international adoptees. In some countries, MKs are not only obvious minorities but may be bullied or experience extreme racism, that I, as a white child in Nigeria, did not face in the same way. This means as we work with our MKs, we need to take time to hear their entire story. Children who have been adopted may have significant attachment issues which multiple cycles of separation and loss (often inherent in the MK experience) may exacerbate. Are there ways to create more physical and emotional stability for those MKs?
What about our MKs who go to school in a Westernbased educational environment but return to a much different environment at home? What about MKs who may face racism in their host countries or, in some cases, may blend into their host culture by appearance and be shocked to face racism in their home country if they happen to be a minority there? How well do we support mixed racial heritage couples and their children not only in our community, but when they may face challenges in the surrounding culture?
I also believe by using this larger model we can encourage MKs of all backgrounds to realize they belong to a bigger whole. Often, they feel like “my situation is so unique, no one can possibly understand me.” Instead, they can begin to see that their lives were designed and given by God to prepare them to live fully and well in a globalizing world, for God’s sake and their joy.
If we help them see that being made in the image of God as relational, emotional, creative, intellectual, volitional, and spiritual beings is their primary identity rather than their experience of being an MK, they can understand how much they do share in common with others and realize what they have learned in their specific story has application for others even if the contexts are different.
Looking Farther Ahead
But stay tuned! As I indicated above, this emerging discussion is not yet complete. Even as I write, some researchers are suggesting that it’s important to recognize the generic roots of this third culture term as a way of life formed when people of different cultures relate one to another and form an interstitial, or third culture, space. If that happens, the TCK definition itself needs to be updated to include all who grow up navigating different cultural worlds. That, of course, would include all I now list as CCKs. Others suggest keeping the TCK term more “pure” in a way that reflects its historical roots and then using other language such as CCK or a new term to recognize all who grow up cross-culturally— including traditional TCKs. Time will tell how these new discussions play out, but either way, we can see the reality of the huge cultural changes in our world and how/why we need to stay involved in the discussions. It’s important to help us keep giving the best MK care we can, but also as those called to go into all the world, what we are learning for ourselves has increasing relevance for many of the people with whom we work.
What we must never do as a community in these most interesting and energizing (to me at least!) conversations is be caught in defending the past of, for me, a term I made up. There are going to be further pit stops ahead where we can keep growing and, again, we want to be part of moving forward not getting stuck on the track! What is important is that by staying involved in these global discussions, we can continue to see more clearly the changes that will continue to go on for our MKs and their care.
Christopher O’Shaughnessy (Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between, 2014)
Meanwhile, during this current pit stop, members from our community have added other adjustments for the race ahead. Those at the Shepherd’s Table meeting formed an association called Global Third Culture Hub: Care, Advocacy, Resources, Equipping. You will hear more from and about their plans for how to care for all MKs the world over through future editions of Interact. Groups like Daraja are seeking to find new ways to help disciple MKs and other Christian TCKs and help them develop the gifts of this lifestyle for fulfilling their place in God’s kingdom. Still others are out in the wider world, looking for MKs who may have been wounded or gotten lost in their journeys.
Yes, there is a race still to be run. Thankfully, God has gifted and called so many creative, committed people to continue driving the cars and refilling the engines, as they keep the finish line in mind … that day when they, like those who have gone before, hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”
Ruth E. Van Reken
Ruth Van Reken is a second generation third-culture kid (TCK) and mother of three now adult TCKs. She is co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds (third edition), and author of Letters Never
Sent, her personal journaling seeking to understand the long-term impact of her cross-cultural childhood. For more than thirty years Ruth has traveled extensively speaking about issues related to the impact of global mobility on individuals, families, and societies. She is the co-founder and past chairperson of Families in Global Transition. In addition to her two books and many articles, she has written a chapter in other books including Strangers at Home, Unrooted Childhoods, and Writing Out of Limbo and co-authored Life in Motion, a study of how people in the Bible experienced transitions. In 2019, she received an honorary degree (Doctor of Letters) from Wheaton College for her life's work .
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