[This article also exists in podcast form. You can listen to it on Pondering Purple, HERE.] Someone asked me, recently, why there is such an emphasis on grief and loss in my speaking on MK topics. Muki, one of the participants in a reentry retreat this summer, said it best: “I feel like grief has […]

  Let me be blunt. I am so tired of hearing the following statements spoken to hurting, broken and disillusioned people. Everything happens for a reason. God will work it out for good. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. He gives and takes away. He has a purpose for your pain. More […]

They lived and died by the tens of thousands for their faith, yet few of us really know who the Huguenots were. Were it not for the research I conducted for my novel, The Space Between Words, they’d be little more to me than interesting footnotes in the annals of Christian history. Yet in startling […]

I’ve written about healthy transitions before, but haven’t gotten into the specific areas that can be utterly perplexing to many MKs and TCKs. I am convinced more than ever that Global Nomads need Cultural Mentors to help them with transitioning back to their passport culture. If you’re in the Global Nomad camp, I encourage you […]

Please note: This article is about a Third Culture Kids’ relationships with individual Americans (the people), not about our views of America (the geo-political power) and its Washingtonian shenanigans. I address those in this separate post. If someone had asked me, when I returned to the States for college, what I liked about this country, […]

I asked adult MKs to share what they loved most about growing up between worlds. Then I asked children to recite the answers. If ever there was evidence that “MKness” is great, this is it! Feel free to share the video using the social media buttons below or by copying and pasting this link: https://youtu.be/cga6fBJwzWE […]

[Scroll down for the Five Healthy Practices] November marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of my venture into ministry. When I set out for Germany in 1991, buoyed by the idealism of youth, I assumed I’d be on the field for a couple of years, then return to the States to live out the milestones I thought […]

If you’re familiar with the Adult MK Survey I ran last year, you’ve read some of the disquieting comments posted by those who have rejected God. The reasons they give for their abandonment of faith are diverse: dysfunctional families, trauma on the field, irrational expectations, unanswered questions, anger, grief, apathy… The common thread in their […]

(Ten Tips for TCK Voters is at the bottom of this post. Click HERE to be taken directly there.) I’m a Third Culture Kid with an American passport. I grew up in countries where Washington mattered because its selfless sacrifices saved powerless strangers. But I’ve returned to this country to find Washington adrift, saving itself […]

I had returned to the place that was home to me, where I’d lived from infancy until my teen years. I was eager to introduce my friend, Mari Ellen, to the City of Lights, a contradictory place at once shining and shadowed, forcible and fragile, analytical and artistic. While Mari Ellen took in a small […]