by Jonathan
If you find yourself in the dark today, not sure of what to do or where to go, I’d like to give you three pinpoints of light. Three true stars by which to navigate the night.
On whatever continent you find yourself, across whichever sea, whatever generation you claim, and whatever country claims you, may these three reminders illuminate your today.
Read the full post over at A Life Overseas.
Jonathan is over at A Life Overseas today, talking about how moving abroad ruined his parenting.
I sat on the floor, weeping.
I was two whole days into living abroad, and I was already losing it.
Those tears portended more, and in our first year overseas, the thing that knocked me down the most, the thing that discouraged and distracted and depressed me the most, was the sense that I was failing at fatherhood.
I loved being a dad. It was a very core part of my identity, and something I really cherished. Moving to Cambodia, I had expected cross-cultural stress. I had expected transition tension and unmet expectations. I had even expected conflict with other missionaries and nationals. But I never thought I’d feel like my identity as a father was being shredded up and burned in the furnace of a cross-cultural move. That was a surprise.
We moved overseas when our boys were six and seven and our girls were one and three.
I suppose my fathering style could have been characterized as, um, B I G. I loved playing with our kids in wide open spaces, throwing things, kicking things, climbing things. We played loud and we took up a lot of space, and that’s how we liked it.
And then we moved to a concrete box with bars on the windows in an urban capital of a developing country. No grass. No yard. No large spaces.
For me, the shift from wide open spaces to urban jungle was rough. I had to adjust, but first I got depressed. Often, it’d happen on a Saturday; I’d wake up just wanting to go outside and throw a football with my kids.
And with the clarity of thought that overwhelms at times like this, I felt like I had moved from a garden to a prison. A prison that was 95 degrees and thick with humidity!
I had traded acres of green for walls of grey. En Gedi for Sheol.
I watched my kids hang from metal bars on windows when they used to hang from giant limbs on oaks. They were happy, but I was dying.
I missed being able to step outside and kick a soccer ball. I missed our fire pit on cold autumn nights. I missed our porch swing. I missed our yard. I missed the way I used to father.
But thank God the story doesn’t end there, with a depressed dad missing what once was. No, the story definitely doesn’t end there…
To read the rest of the story, click here.
Elizabeth is over at A Life Overseas today, offering a science metaphor for Third Culture Kids (and anyone who lives or has lived cross-culturally).
Some of you know I’m a science lover. Our friends back in the States know this too, and a couple times a year they send us a package with their old science magazines (along with other treats). I love Magazine Arrival Day.
Earlier this year I cracked open the September 2014 issue of Discover magazine and read about neutrinos – tiny, subatomic particles I don’t even pretend to understand. I’m a chemist, for goodness sake, not a physicist. My scientific understanding only goes down as small as protons and electrons, and not a quark smaller. Neutrinos are smaller than that, and also, extremely secretive.
As I read (largely uncomprehendingly) through the article, one particular section caught my attention, and I paused. Are we sure we’re talking about tiny subatomic particles here?? Because to me, this paragraph sounded more like the description of a fellow Third Culture Kid than anything else. Or, to enlarge the conversation a bit, it sounded like a Cross Cultural Kid (CCK) or Third Culture Adult (TCA) — terms I first read about in Lois Bushong’s insanely helpful Belonging Everywhere and Nowhere.
Finish reading here.
Jonathan is over at A Life Overseas today, sharing his perspective on what creates effective communication back to senders and supporters.
Newsletters. Prayer updates. Itinerations. Reports. Furloughs. Presentations.
Are you stressed out yet?
For most of us, living and serving abroad means communicating back to senders. A lot. But this isn’t what we went to school for, and besides that, communicating in person or in print is scary. It’s exposing. It’s like learning a new culture and language; sometimes when we mess up it’s funny, sometimes not so much.
We’re all too familiar with the dangers:
Communicate too much and we’ll annoy people or people will say we’re not protecting the privacy of the nationals.
Don’t communicate enough and we’ll get dropped; people or churches will stop supporting us, because “out of sight, out of mind.”
Talk about the right stuff in the right way. One missionary recently told me that you have to appear miserable enough that people will still support you while not appearing so miserable they want you to come home.
To be sure, communicating with senders (via newsletter or a live missions report) is a unique form of communication, blending a bit of travelogue with a side of sales pitch, and then adding a large spoonful of sermon. It’s like a Christmas Letter got married to a Church Bulletin and had an Amway.
Finish reading the post here.
Elizabeth is over at A Life Overseas today, offering words of encouragement for marriages struggling through a trailing spouse issue.
“Feeling so fearful and alone since moving as a trailing spouse”
Last month someone found my blog because they did an internet search for that phrase. It reminded me how much pain a trailing spouse endures. I remember the struggle; I remember the suffering. And while whoever typed those search terms is actually not alone, I can attest to the fact that it very much feels that way. I remember how dark it felt, how black the future seemed. I remember how much pressure I was placing on myself not to ruin my husband’s dreams. I remember being afraid that nothing would ever be OK again and that it would all be my fault.
Telling my trailing spouse story has opened up conversations with women all over the world, both before and after they reach the field. (A trailing spouse doesn’t have to be a woman, but women are the ones who have reached out to me.) So with that in mind, I’m going to share parts of emails I’ve sent to women who have asked for more of my story. I’ve deleted identifying details to protect their privacy. These are the things I would say to any marriage dealing with a trailing spouse issue.
Finish reading the post here.
Jonathan & Elizabeth Trotter 