I can remember the very first time I read a book on TCK's... I resonated so much with the feelings described on each page!
I was in the IMB library... with a wealth of resources at my fingertips, and an assignment to prepare to go into a new country miles away from any of the many countries I grew up in. But I was swayed and drawn in by a display that was supposed to help my fellow missionary-trainees as they thought about raising their children in a culture that was not 'theirs.'
Maybe this book was so meaningful because I finally found 'my people' even in the midst of this sea of Southerners who talked about shrimp n' grits and fried chicken like it was manna from heaven. Unlike my fellow trainees who strongly identified each other by football team allegiances, I had discovered my people who were also uncomfortable with, "Where are you from?" In the pages of this book I had found that there were other people who were regarded as 'strange' because their hearts beat in rhythms that fell outside the expected US norms. Finally I fit in, had a label that stuck - I am an ATCK.
Today, I don't know what the title of the book was, but I still remember the impact it had on me!
Now, after surviving the cold-culture climate so different from the Latin warmth that I grew up in, I have also lived almost two years in that crazy "South" that was so alienating to me during training. Four years later, I have had to make an uneasy peace with myself... I now live in, and now even have a passport to that one country I find most unglamorous in the whole world.
Yet I love reading blogs like http://www.alifeoverseas.com/ ... (and come to realize that I'm a TCK of two TCKs).
I have been so blessed, and continue to be blessed in this place. So why can't I explain how much it scares me and drives me to tears to think about never living in another country again? How can I make sense of the unease I have thinking about being that rooted pastor's wife living in one place, in one house, in one country till death? I used to dream about having this sense of identity and solid predictability!!
So why is this suddenly a big deal?
Is it seeing how much richness I won't be able to give my children in this stable future? They'll never know or understand why mommy is so 'weird.' They won't long for a good doner (Turkey) or greasy ishpeshmak (Tatar) or locally made empanadas (Ecuador) or street chipa (Paraguay) all in the same day! They probably won't reach for a sip of communal mate or a tiny tulip cup of hot chai and feel the instant camaraderie that is inherent in the sharing of these teas. They won't feel empathy for the stumbling, bumbling, utterly humiliating forays into public when you don't know the local language. They will never appreciate the ridiculous humour of accidentally reading a phrase from one language in another, and understanding something completely different! They might not be able to make friends wherever their feet land. And they won't feel their heart warm when distant friends make it a priority to call, write, or communicate somehow because their friends all live next door.
Or is it just that my loving, God-following yet rooted, husband does not hear the call of the 'wilds' like I do? Even though he is the one that gets questioned most about his appearance, I am the one who fits in least here in this country.
I don't know.
But I'm thankful for a fellow TCK blogger, Marilyn Gardner- and her reminder of Psalm 84. A day in God's courts, is better than a thousand elsewhere. And even sparrows find home in the altar of the Lord. And verses 11-12....
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
