I’ve been a third culture kid (TCK) for as long as I’ve been alive. I am proud to have a childhood full of cultural experiences, a mouth that mixes multiple languages, and a heart that just can’t quite commit to one ethnic group. Now that I have children of my own, I enjoy seeing similar traits in them. I want them to embrace their TCK-ness and I am blessed to be able to look back on my own childhood and learn from my parents.Here are five things my parents did that impacted my attitude toward being a TCK:

1. My parents did not make their children feel like “extra baggage.” On the contrary, they made it clear to us that we were part of the ministry. I remember riding on the back of my dad’s Vespa scooter when he travelled to villages in the evenings and helping my mom teach Bible class to kids.
2. My parents were eager to include us in ministry but they also planned times for relaxing and for vacations.  Twice a year we went to the beach for a week and several times a year we would go to the mountains to enjoy the cool air and play in the mountain streams. Ministry was important to my dad, but so was family time. He said so, but he also showed us by living that way.
3. My parents treated life like an adventure. When we had problems, they encouraged us to pray about them, deal with them...and then move on; rather than pining away over them. When I went to college my mother gave me a postcard of a surfer and on the back she wrote “Remember to ride the waves of your circumstances, don’t drown in them.” I carried it with me for years.
4. When I moved away from home, I knew that my parents would leave their work and come to me if I ever really needed them. I think it is because of that security that I never felt the need to actually ask them to do so. I knew they would if I was in need, and that was enough for me.
5. I knew that my parents prayed for me faithfully (as they do to this day). Every New Year they diligently update their prayer list for each of us kids (and now their grandkids as well). Throughout the year they ask us about the requests or if there are additional ways they can pray for us. They have done this since I was very young.

Some TCKs struggle and some don’t adapt well. I think that is the case with kids anywhere, not only TCKs.  Our set of challenges is unique, but other kids have their own set of difficult challenges.So we TCKs have our own “third culture,” don’t feel sorry for us! It is a reminder that we really aren’t citizens of any earthly country anyway. We are pilgrims: passing through. It’s not that we can’t fit in anywhere...it’s that we have the tools to fit in everywhere!

How do you embrace your Third Culture Kids's uniqueness?  Are you a TCK?  Has that affected the way you view your children?

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Jana writes about TCK life in her two devotional books: Villa in the Hilla: Devotions from the Desert  and Cottage in the Kampung: Treasures from the Tropics .

Check out her latest release Side by Side, a Novel.

In the dusty, Islamic country of Sudan, Mia's life collides with that of another young woman. A young Christian American mother, Mia finds more than one dark secret on the streets of Khartoum. She finds Halimah, a young, upper-class Arab student with a bright future in her family's business whose risky and secretive decision has put her life in danger. What happens when the path of young mother intersects with that of a spunky Sudanese student? God transforms them both . . .forever.

Learn more at JanaKelley.com. Books are available on Amazon.com.

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