a Third Culture Kid thing

I’m a missionary kid (mk) we’re often referred to as third culture kids (tck). Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a friend about my struggles with friendships. Listen in on the conversation and then read my analysis of it. If you are a tck, do you resonate with this?

Me: Have you ever wished you could spend your entire life with somebody?

Friend: Ummm...yeah

Me: Like not live with them or anything, but just have that security that you’ll always have them as your friend. Because I have some friends that I really enjoy being with, I would like to know that we’ll be friends for the rest of our lives.

Friend: Like be neighbors?

Me: Yeah, I would just like to have that security that we’ll always be friends, no matter what happens. Don’t you ever feel that way?

Friend: Well, towards girl friends I do, but I don’t really have that many guy friends.

Me: I would just like all my girl and guy friends to be my sisters and brothers. So that we can joke around and talk and know that we’ll always be friends no matter what happens.

This conversation may seem weird to you; that’s ok, my friend thought so too, and so did I. But the root of the conversation is what struck me.

TCK’s don’t very often have consistency in their relationships. The average mk has had 8 major moves by the time they turn 18, that’s a lot. We become accustomed to our friend’s moving away from us or us moving away from our friends. But being accustomed to it, doesn’t mean we like it. Few of us have had friends or even acquaintances whom we’ve been able to keep in touch with for more than two or three years. Our relatives are strangers to us, we care for them, yet we don’t know them personally. The only people who have been consistent in our lives have been our family, but when we turn 18 an go to college, we realize that we didn’t even have them in our grasp.

While this aspect of being an mk definitely teaches us that God is consistent and that we always have God; our humanity still longs for consistency in our relationships. Studying for the last 3 years at a Bible school has been amazing, there’s been so much consistency in relationships, and I’ve found other mks whom I can relate to. I have felt like I can finally relax. But with graduation being just around the corner I began to fear again the upcoming departure with my friends.

Part of me wants to declare to my friends (guys and girls) “promise me that you’ll be my friend no matter what happens! That we’ll always keep in touch that distance won’t separate us. Be my brother, be my sister, promise you’ll keep in touch!” But such a promise cannot be made even with social networks like facebook. Inconsistency is a very real thing in life. We will always have to say hello and goodbye to our dear friends. But despite this fact, I believe we can still reach out to our brothers and sisters and say, “I’m your friend, no matter what, you can visit me wherever I’m at , you’ll always be welcome in my home.”