Some felt pressure to keep it secret, worried that if they reported their abuse, their parents would be sent home from the mission field.

Children felt that the mission work of their parents came before their needs. One alum in the report said going away to boarding school as elementary-age children left children with a “profound” sense of abandonment.

in moments of deep grief you’re faced with a decision: either cling to God and let him be your source of comfort, or run from him and wade through the grief on your own.

You can’t make it through the expatriate life without experiencing the touch of grief. Grief is temporarily or permanently losing something that you loved. Living a life of high mobility, constant goodbyes, and exposure to big and little traumas causes griefs to steadily stack up along the way. I’ve written a couple of books on this metaphor, which I call the Grief Tower. //

Our personal storylines tend to subconsciously ripple into an assumption that God responds the same way to our grief that we as humans do.

When people say, “Look at the bright side,” we think the right thing to do is to stay positive. We forget that God invites lament. When people say, “He works all things out for the good,” we forget that when it doesn’t feel good in the moment, God is still there to empathize, comfort, and acknowledge that this feels so hard. When people say, “You’re so strong for how you’re handling this,” we don’t remember that God doesn’t expect us to be strong. We forget that He is strong so we don’t have to be.

What Is a Missionary Kid Worth?

Risks remain higher in cross-cultural contexts. And misconduct is harder to report.

The young American stood in the back of the truck as it moved slowly through the streets of Nalerigu, Ghana. Friends gathered along the road held up flags and cheered for the teenager clad in a Ghanaian national shirt. Bystanders called out to see the two medals clanging on Trey Haun’s chest. He held up the silver and bronze, waved and then quickly ducked his head, trying to hide his smile.

The 16-year-old has lived somewhere between embarrassed and excited since the 2022 Unicycle Convention and World Championship ended. Winning the first ever medals for Ghana created not only international media-buzz but guest appearances at celebrations all over Northern Ghana. While the world wanted the story behind an American representing Ghana at an international competition, the Mamprusi community just wanted to celebrate their son, Manboora Trey.

Then something happened that I didn’t anticipate; a significant proportion of my Third Culture Kid clients presenting with either formal diagnoses of AD(H)D or clusters of behaviours that signalled experiences often pegged as AD(H)D.