Missions Textbook 56
Third Culture Kids

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

Before our first trip back to the States, I wrote this to Sue:

We are all looking forward to the year in the States, and we are anticipating permanently changing the boys from a German-speaking school system to an English-speaking one.

Erich (and Michael, of course) really needs the benefit of being with Christian kids his own age – or at least kids being raised by Christian parents. We have talked to him about dating and girls and about the added pressures that come with growing older. He has already noticed that he has fewer friends than he had in elementary school. And as far as dating goes, he is in agreement that he wait until he is fifteen, and then only double dates, and then only with Christians. The problem is that many of the fourteen-year-olds have already slept with someone, and those who haven’t would never admit it. There are no Christian girls to be had, except for a half dozen in the church who are all younger than Michael. {Of course, Bernd and Karin had two lovely girls, and although all four of us adults would have been thrilled if they had noticed one another romantically, the relationship seemed to be more like siblings.]

The girls haven’t been calling Erich yet, but he has never gone through an I-hate-girls phase. When I was in elementary school, boys had “cooties.”

Third Culture Kids are children who are from one culture and raised in a different culture, usually with languages being different as well. The difference between the kids and Floyd and I was that we knew we were adapting, and we often made choices whether to adapt or not. The boys, on the other hand, had no choice. Things just happened to them, and as most children do, they thought that every kid was going through the same things they were going through.

These kids learn the culture and language of their parents, but they also learn the host culture and language – and often better than their parents do. Their language can be a conglomeration of both languages. In fact, although Floyd and I could not speak the local dialect without making the people feel we were mocking them, the boys learned the local dialect perfectly, and their peers expected them to speak it. What happens, then, is that the children blend the two cultures into a Third Culture that is unique to children raised in the exact same conditions. The problem with this, however, is that the child never feels totally at home in his mother tongue culture because people there don’t understand the strange things he says or does, and he misses things from the host country. On the other hand, he also doesn’t feel completely at home in the host country because there are things he prefers “from home,” and there are even things he is not allowed to participate in (like Mardi Gras/ Fasching). Consequently, we have created a group of children who adapt well but who don’t feel really at home anywhere. One missionary suggested that maybe they feel the most at home in airports!

In the novel about India during the time of the British rule, the hero, Ashton Pelham-Martyn, was born of British parents but after their death, he was raised by a Hindu woman, who named him Ashok. When she died, his father’s relatives sent him back to Great Britain to be educated. The British army needed men who could understand the Indian way of thinking, so they sent Ashton – now a man – back to India to serve in the Guides. When he tried to relate to the Indians as he used to, he was corrected by a Muslim friend:

“You cannot . . . be two people in one skin.”

“I am that already,” said Ash wryly. “Your brother helped to make me so when he told me it would be best for me . . . to become a Sahib. Well, I have learned. Yet I am still Ashok, and I cannot alter that either, for having been a child of this land for eleven years I am tied to it by something as strong as the tie of blood, and shall always be two people in one skin – which is not a comfortable thing to be.”

[He] laid a consoling hand on his shoulder and said gently: “That I understand. But you will find it easier if you keep the two separate and do not try to be both at one time. And someday – who knows? – you may discover in yourself a third person who is neither Ashok nor Pelham-Sahib, but someone whole and complete: yourself. Now let us talk of other things.”[1]

As parents and teachers and Christian leaders, we need to be aware of the struggles of Third Culture Kids. International schools should have counseling available. Mission agencies should have resources for the families to use.

Most important, however, is the relationship between the children and their parents. I think we have mentioned this before, but when a child feels shut out because his parents are consumed with “God’s work,” it is likely that the child will resent God. Families need to be aware of what is happening to the children and they need to look for ways to help the children cope. Floyd took the boys out regularly for cocoa and pastries, giving them an opportunity to really talk.

We included our children in many of the ministries we did. Erich eventually played guitar in the worship services on Sunday. The boys played soccer, and when we returned to the States for a few months, we didn’t try to teach them baseball, but let them join a soccer team where they could shine. We taught them how to fit into the culture, attracting as little attention as possible, but we also taught them from Scripture that all cultures fail to meet up to God’s standards.

Our son, Erich, has told us that this way of growing up was difficult, but it was good practice for applying the idea that we, as believers, are aliens in this world. Our true home is in heaven, and we only adapt here as much as we need to so we can be witnesses.

1 Peter 2:11 – “Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul” (NASB).

Hebrews 11:13 – “All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (NASB).

Philippians 3:20 – “But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (NASB).

[1] M.M. Kaye, The Far Pavilions (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1978).

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

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