Family in Ministry 5 of 5 – Nomadic Kids 2

Last time I had been exploring with you the nomadic heart of your children.  I’ve examined the influence of the passport and host country on their identity finding process.  Raising kids in a cross-cultural setting has profound impact on their future lives.  I challenge you to have a close look at the rate of integration and identification of your children in these two countries they periodically live in.  Did you detect shortcomings in their process and find some solutions? 

Today I want to continue looking at the influence of the host country and furlough times when the kids search for identity.  Let me, at this point, focus on a very integral part of your children’s identification with the host country, which is their own involvement in ministry.  I’m sure you would agree that to begin with kids follow their parent’s calling overseas.  If you as parents are very involved in ministry, the following can happen.  The kids feel as an appendix to the parent’s calling.  They feel a burden to the ministry or they feel overloaded with unrealistic expectations and responsibilities.  This will not help them to identify with their parents’ commitment and it can additionally cause anger and struggles within their own faith.  Therefore, it is extremely important not to pressurize them, not to give them guilt feelings, but rather to see if they can find their own niche of ministry.  Giving your kids an opportunity to become involved on their level and abilities will help them to develop their own spiritual roots and not just to be a spectator. 

Ideally kids love to work in teams.  If there is, for example, a youth group, they can set their own goals.  They can decide together on projects. This could be practical work in a children’s home, helping with distributions, preparing a service, or many other possibilities.  Maybe their involvement is not what you had in mind, but you need to give them the freedom to do things differently, even to fail, and also to question your convictions.  They are seekers and learners as much as those you came to serve. 

Let me urge you, at this point again, that your first and primary ministry must be to your own kids to nurture their spiritual growth.  This will help them to build trust.  This will be a witness to those you want to minister to.  You have to keep in mind that Third Culture Kids are actually better equipped for cross-culture ministry than you as they are growing up overseas.  Don’t ignore or destroy that potential, but cultivate it by being a good model and by giving them the opportunity to develop their own faith. 

Now as we have explored the passport and host country, let me examine the formative events of your furloughs.  These are special times for the whole family, but the expectations of each family member might be quite different.  For you, it means coming back to a familiar place to reconnect with family and friends, to organize meetings, to look after ailing parents, to get medical checkups for the family.  It can be a time that can be very exhausting although it is supposed to be a time of refreshment.  For your children, it can be quite a different situation.  Going to a place that is supposedly home, but where they feel rather as foreigners.  They feel uprooted and insecure.  They might feel overwhelmed by family meetings and unspoken expectations.  Adapting to the fast pace of life and the surplus of utilities will be a tremendous challenge to them.  Additionally, they will deal with grief, missing their friends and the place they call home.  Consequently, you as parents might get frustrated and short tempered about their seeming lack of adjustment and thankfulness.  As you are busy and stretched, you miss out acknowledging their underlying pain.  I want to encourage you to empathize.  They are like foreigners in the country you call home as much as you were foreigners when you first entered the host country.  And I’m sure you remember the heartache you went through as an adult when you tried to adjust to a multitude of new things.  How much more will it affect your kids who cannot really express what is going on inside of them?  So please keep in mind that home assignment is a matter of short-term context for you, but for your kids, these experiences have long-term implications as each furlough paves the way for future ones and ultimately for their re-entry. 

You will be wise to prayerfully consider the following points:  where and how many deputations are necessary and how can the kids be part of it without being manipulated?  How can I use the home assignment to help my kids develop basic life skills like work experience, budgeting, looking at colleges?  How can I ensure more stability for the kids?  As we know, physical rootedness produces emotional rootedness.  Coming back to the same area or even the same house, helps to maintain their peer relationships.  It is important to realize that the more clearly defined the culture may be, the greater the challenge for the person returning.  Therefore, for a Third Culture Kid, returning to his or her passport country often is a greater challenge than being a global nomad where he can fit in with everybody to a certain degree.  The fitting in everywhere and nowhere can become such a hallmark of a Third Culture Kid’s life that it is like a driving force to keep moving.  Our daughter Hannah has written another great poem to this theme.  I want to share it with you.  It is called, ‘Wings and Roots.’  It tries to explain the state of rootlessness that seems inherent and becomes part of your life as Third Culture Kids with all its enriching and difficult side effects.

Wings and Roots

There I command you give a child roots when young and roots when older

You gave us wings when we were born so that we could find our roots when older

Yet roots will always beckon wings to settle down

And wings resist the thought of change

Though born with wings the natural drive to fly will always prevent the roots from growing deep.

One of these side effects is that your kids will develop differently from what they would have been had they grown up in the community of their roots.  Don’t feel threatened.  They will be different from you as they experience a variety of intercultural influences compared to your monocultural upbringing.  For Third Culture Kids, the question is roots and his belonging and the struggle with his identity.  These struggles may not be seen as positive by the young person at the time of the experience, but this often comes later.  Another crucial aspect of this identity crisis is that Third Culture Kids tend to face normal adolescent struggles and rebellion at a delayed time.  As this often comes unexpected, you might feel irritated and unsympathetic.  Keep in mind that this is a normal phase and they will need your empathy and a listening ear.  If you are facing a situation like this at the moment, don’t panic.  This too is part of your calling as a family in ministry.  Be as open and supportive as possible.  Don’t feel threatened, but come alongside your kids and listen.  Allow them to grieve and to express their feelings, especially their anger and frustration.  Admit to them that you have been ignorant at times and failed at times.  Ask for their forgiveness.  We all need God’s grace and forgiveness every day as we try to live in obedience. 

Thank you for your interest in our sessions on family ministry.  I’ve challenged you to look seriously at the implications your call to work overseas has on your children.  Family and ministry are not mutually exclusive options.  The commitment is rather to both.  In order to make it work, I have shared about the importance of a healthy marriage.  It gives stability and security to your kids even in the midst of a constantly changing and at-risk world.  And further, I have looked at the importance of unconditional love and affirmation to your children.  The last sessions focused on identity search in the life of a global nomad which is profoundly influenced by a high mobility cross-cultural setting and connectedness to the respective countries.  My prayer is that our Heavenly Father, who loves you unconditionally, will make you very sensitive to the needs of those entrusted to you and that He will enable you to turn a potential loss into an enriching deposit in your child’s life.