My husband and I just put on “All God’s Children”, a film about MK life at Mamou (Guinea) boarding school in the 1950s and ’60s.

The old missionary footage is spellbinding. At least it is to me. These are the first action scenes of missionary work in ‘colonial’ Africa that I’ve ever seen. But where I would normally have reservations about the imperialist baggage of missions, I’m actually anxious about the *other* abuses that went on duing this time – sexual abuse of MKs in boarding school by their own “Christian” dorm parents.

Some of those poor missionary parents were really between a rock and a hard place – feeling destined for mission work yet forced to send their kids away. Boarding school was mandatory. How horrific it must have been. Not to mention how it was for the kids.

Children as young as 6 were ‘boarded’. Siblings were separated. Kids were scolded for missing their Mom and Dad, because those feelings ‘undermined’ their parents’ mission work. Kids’ letters to their parents were censored.

Punishment was inevitable. The abuse was cruel and nonsensical. Children were not allowed to use the washroom during class. Teaching sticks were broken over children’s bottoms. Leather belts met any kid still awake after lights out. And sometimes they drew blood.

And then there was sexual assault. Molestation. Rape. Unspeakable crimes committed against lonely and vulnerable kids.

Some of the MK’s parents (now retired) say they didn’t dream, back in the day, that their ‘friends’ were capable of abusing the kids in their care. Evil lurks in the friendliest faces, I guess.

Kids were silenced by fear. Fear of punishment. Fear of hurting their parents, or of ‘ruining’ their parents’ ministry. Fear of angering God, of going to hell. Fear is what they lived, breathed and slept. So they didn’t dare whisper a word of their horror for decades.

“Mental rape.” What a perfect description of what abused MKs live through. It’s amazing how easily the Bible can be twisted (by fundamentalist evangelicals in this case) and wielded at kids as abusively as those wooden paddles and belt buckles.

“It’s not that victims are against forgiveness. Victims are against ‘forgiveness’ as the solution to the problem” because as long as victims forgive the mission organization, the organization doesn’t have to address the issues.

I recently shared with my brother that my husband and I are finally organizing our kitchen this weekend, making things more efficient now that we have an extra shelf unit in our pantry. After yesterday’s work, our larger appliances no longer take valuable kitchen space and are instead neatly tucked away out of sight. Next, we’re getting ready to reorganize the canned and dry goods, as well as all of our spices, glasses, mugs and dishes. It feels wonderful!

Being the lord of the unblemished environment that he is, my brother congratulated me on our accomplishments so far: “Yeah! A convert to being organized!” he cheered.

But I’ve always been a convert on the inside, I told him.

“Yeah! A convert to actually acting out what’s on the inside and being organized!” he clarified.

But seriously, my TCK upbringing seems to have influenced me to suppress my ‘dream to clean’. While my brother reacted to the chaos of our family’s transient lifestyle by controlling, cleaning, and organizing his environment, I on the other hand developed a subconscioius resistance to putting effort into organization, because I figured that if I could count on anything it was that real life would come along to uproot and cause chaos all over again. I feared the futility of lost time and energy, so I just never botherd to begin with.

From my perspective, spending time and energy on organizing is a big ‘risk’ to take, because you never know when or how all of your efforts will be tossed out the window by life circumstances, like a sudden relocation which was most common to me as a child.

Nevertheless, this is what my husband and I are up to today, and I remain cautiously optimistic. At the very least, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

[Third Culture Kids] struggle with answering simple questions like “Where are you from?” They belong nowhere. They contend with migratory urges and the conflicting desire to root. Travel, adventure, and danger cause them to mature early, yet they continue to experience confusion about their identity, direction, and belonging. Estranged from their parents’ home culture and disconnected from their host culture, they proceed through the world identified as chronic outsiders, known only superficially to those around them, longing, in each new home, to establish connection, yet fearful of becoming too attached. The result is a cultural changeling, alienated from self and aloof from others.

From Unrooted Childhoods, ed. Faith Eidse & Nina Sichel, p. 81

I’m moving Widsith into a more focused direction, and I’m excited about exploring Third Culture Kid life a little more deeply. However, I’ve appreciated all of your comments, and if you’re interested in any of the other topics I used to cover here, please contact me (tck.widsith [at] gmail.com). Thanks!

Through several discussions with friends and family I’ve come to discover another way in which the TCK profile has surfaced yet again in the way I deal with life, or more to the point in the way I deal with change. Change is one of the few constants in a TCK’s life, and my experience was no different. My geographical location has changed about 12 times in 28 years. Our proximity to my extended family has changed from being across an ocean from them to being just down the street. I have attended 13 schools, and changed church ‘membership’ 11 times (not to mention the countless churches I have visited through the years). I made many friends and lost most of them again along the way. Losing my European friends at the age of 10 stripped me of a huge support system, making me feel extremely vulnerable and alone in my new Canadian neighborhood.

Losing one group of friends after another in each successive move was heart-wrenching (except for the rare case in which my ‘friends’ turned out not to be real friends after all and kind of dropped me when they found someone ‘cooler’ to hang out with…). So how on earth does a vulnerable child with struggling self-confidence deal with repeated losses such as these?

You learn to let go, and let go ASAP.

I was just telling my cousin last night that every time I had to say good-bye to my friends, my house, my school, church, and neighborhood I felt like they immediately became shadows of my past: Old and passing worlds that were preserved like time capsules in my mind. That’s still all they are to me now… slowly fading shadows of both happy and difficult memories. And the only world I’ve ever really wanted to return to was Europe… that place somehow managed to stamp its permanence onto my heart forever.

What about people? If past worlds become shadows do passing friendships become as ghosts? Well… pretty much. That is, unless some small seed of loyalty compels them to do the work required to maintain a friendship despite geographical distance. Even in the age of the internet most people do not walk down that road with me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, friendships mean the world to me. Having lost so many I know just how valuable they are and so I develop a deep, unwavering loyalty to them. And when the time comes (as it so often does) that we must say good-bye I’ve learned to grieve as deeply and quickly as possible, release the friendship to join the other shadows of my past, and move on. Given the number of good-byes in a typical TCK’s life it’s only natural that one would want to move on quickly and efficiently.

What benefits has this survival technique given to many TCKs? We can adapt to change in a flash. Personally, I know how to appreciate the people who are in my life at the moment, and I know how to move on when they’re gone. I make the most of my friendships when they’re around, and I also know how to thrive when I’m alone. I’m glad when people are in my life, but I’m also not surprised when they disappear. That said, I also never forget the faces of those who showed kindness and loyalty to me while they were in my life, and they remain in my heart forever.

On a whole, these TCK good-byes affect my views of the past, present, and future. I’ve found myself chasing my past… my childhood in Europe, wanting to return to that place that was so fun, safe, and care-free. I find myself living in the moment, appreciating the people, the places, and all the little things that may never cross my path again. And when I think of the future I see the whole world open to me, I see countless faces yet to meet and countless places yet to live. And with simultaneous grief and excitement I know there will yet be countless good-byes.

I recently heard the term “transculturate” – like “acculturate” it relates to the uptake of cultural features when one moves into a new culture, but it also implies more of a balanced bi-directional relationship between the new arrival and his/her environment.

In my years-long process of searching for ways to resolve my cultural identity conundrum I’ve wrestled with the idea of acculturating. The process of cultural identity formation was especially confusing for me as it coincided with adolescent identity issues. There were moments when I tried to forget my past entirely (i.e. acculturate/assimilate into Canadian culture) in an effort to gain social acceptance. But there were also times in which I went to the other extreme and wished I could separate myself entirely (i.e. marginalize/hermitize) from Canadian culture. I finally realized that acculturating, to me, meant becoming like my Canadian peers both inside and out, which would make me feel as if I were letting go of my childhood overseas – not my preferred choice.

So this ‘transculturate’ idea makes sense to me and feels more balanced. In fact it positions me (the hidden immigrant) not as a vulnerable subject labouring to swim upstream against the powerful influence of my passport culture, but rather as a subject with a firm footing in the midst of my surrounding culture and the autonomy to be selective about the features of my past and present cultures that contribute to my cultural identity. It also reminds me to be more intentional about appreciating and directing this process in every-day life.

A friend of ours on the field once wrote a humorous letter to his financial supporters that we found gratifying. He said that if you ask a group of missionary kids, “What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever had to eat?” you will get all kinds of different answers, depending on the country where they’ve grown up. An MK from the Philippines will say one thing, somebody from Bolivia will say something else, somebody from the Congo something else.

But if you follow up with the question “So how did you get it down the hatch?” the kids will all give you the same answer: ketchup!

Source: Burnham, G., & Merrill, D. (2004). In the Presence of My Enemies. Tyndale House PUblishers, Inc., p. 53.

If you’re a Third Culture Kid, where would you rate yourself on this scale:

1. I’m no chameleon; I live out my one chosen culture anywhere and everywhere.
2. I’m settled into my chosen culture, but I can take on aspects of other cultures if I work at it.
3. I’m only a chameleon in new and unfamiliar places.
4. I’m a chameleon most of the time.
5. I’ve become one with my ‘inner chameleon’.
6. Other

We’re told that many TCKs become cultural chameleons due to prolonged exposure to numerous cultures during their developmental years. So I was wondering: How many of us tend to be chameleons in new situations? On the other hand, how many of us reject the chameleon perspective and instead project our chosen culture wherever we happen to be?

In other words, are you a chronic chameleon, an anti-chameleon, or somewhere in between?

TCK’s experiences can defy many of our North American assumptions about racism. Identity can be stronger with a racial group other than one’s own, and because of this, the North American “rules” of “race” and colour often don’t hold true for the TCK. ‘The race relations in the United States are not recognized by TCK when they return, and thus they have to learn them at a different stage in their lives. They have not been socialized with the racism and definitions of race like most Americans have.’ (source)

So, is this statement true, false or…? If you’re a TCK, how does this measure up in your experience (whether or not you’re from the US)?

Serves 2

Step 1:
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp fresh ginger root, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 eggs
1/4 tsp dill
1 tbsp yogurt
1 tsp crushed peppers (optional)
a dash of pepper
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp green onions, thinly sliced

- heat oil & butter in frying pan
- fry ginger & garlic in pan until light brown
- meanwhile whisk together egg, dill, yogurt, crushed peppers, salt & pepper
- pour over ginger & garlic in frying pan
- sprinkle green onions over top
- turn element down to low/med-low and cook until underside of omelette is light brown, then fold over and cover with lid
- remove from element when egg is fully cooked, though not too dry

Step 2:
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp butter
1 medium tomato
1 clove garlic, minced
0.5 tsp basil
0.5 tsp oregano
0.5 tsp thyme

- cut tomato lengthwise into round slices, and put into frying pan after the omelette has been removed
- sprinkle with minced garlic, basil, oregano, and thyme
- fry lightly on both sides for 2 minutes
- serve tomatoes over top or beside omelette, with rye bread or toasted rye on the side

Our recipes are usually works in progress that turn out a little different each time. So let us know your variations on our recipes too – we’d love to try them!