The Irrational Season

LONDON, finally...

2010-01-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Finally in London! Treasuring every minute of that strange in between time before anything makes sense. None of the streets lead to anything I recognize and I can still get completely lost. The city has not shrunken with recognition yet...it feels vast and unexplored. When I am in our flat I long to be out walking. I absolutely LOVE that I have days and weeks of something new every day ahead of me.

I have been too busy riding our whirlwind to post here but I am feeling the urge returning....:)

ISABEL'S FAREWELL TO AFRICA

2009-11-27T01:01:00.000-08:00

GOODBYE TO AFRICA

Goodbye green acacia trees
Goodbye strong women
Who carry loads upon their heads
Goodbye forked lightning
Glorious African thunderstorms
Goodbye

Goodbye smoky braais
Goodbye blue, blue skies
Goodbye jacaranda forests
Goodbye Southern Cross of stars
Goodbye

Goodbye blue jacket men
Goodbye throaty Afrikaans
Goodbye,boerewors
Goodbye, six inch millipedes
Goodbye

Goodbye red earth
Goodbye young buck
Goodbye colourful rand
Goodbye roadside zebra
Goodbye

Goodbye joyful Africa
Goodbye mourning Africa
Goodbye enticing Africa
Goodbye dangerous Africa
Goodbye

Goodbye beautiful Africa
Goodbye shocking Africa
Goodbye wild Africa
Goodbye complicated Africa
Goodbye Africa

Isabel Crawley upon leaving South Africa for London

"Learning To Change"

2009-09-22T06:26:00.000-07:00

I am almost afraid to re-emerge here, it has been so long. I have been completely and totally engaged with the nitty gritty of life and adjustment to South Africa.

We have extended our time here through November which means our limbo season has been longer than we expected. Each of my girls has handled this in different ways and I want to share my twelve year old daughter Isabel's most recent reflection on how she is feeling about all the change that she has gone through in the last three months.

This is an excerpt from her blog:

LEARNING TO CHANGE

Here in South Africa I've learned a lot. How to try new things WITHOUT thinking they look gross. How to haggle in markets. How to tie a sarong. How to take risks and adapt your recipes. (The chocolate cake adaption turned out great, the flour-less chocolate cookies not so great.:)) How to take a chance and ask questions. how to use a camera to its full capacity. How to deal (With my dad's very eager help) with male attention. How to mix paint. How to watch no movies except the occasional babysitting movie. How to put a memory card into the computer (I learned the hard way. Trust me to put the card in the only slot you shouldn't. Hehehe). How to PUT DOWN a book if it's to "Old" for me. How to put together a coherent (barely) sentence in Afrikaans. But mostly, I've learned (or just started the lesson) on how to accept change. Plans have changed. Ideas have changed. Relationships have changed. I've changed. And I'm learning to hold onto the things that don't change, and to enjoy things that I have while I have them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert. I find change really painful. Changing from house to house, from country to country, mindset to mindset, from child to teenager (don't rush me!); I find super hard. I don't think I'd change anything that's happened, but I still cry over things.
But in every painful change I've undergone, God has put wonderful things in them, too. I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe I'm learning to trust that there is a plan in the chaos, a reason to the pain, and more importantly, there are things that never change. Ever. I'm learning what they are.
But, even though change is so hard, in a way I'm glad I get so much of it. With all of the different things I've seen and felt and heard, and all the amazing people I've talked to, I wouldn't trade my life for the most rooted, stable place on earth.
I used to think (and still kind of do) that my mom was totally crazy to like moving and change so much, but now I think I understand her better. In any case, I don't think I have a choice not to follow in her footsteps, though they stretch all over the globe!
(Anyway, everyone knows my parents are completely, without a doubt, totally crazy!:)

Isabel

Porous

2009-07-14T01:30:00.000-07:00

"When deeply rooted, one is prepared for every opening; or, as Aime Cesaire expresses it, 'Porous to all the breathings of the world'."

- Joseph Ki-Zerbo

Here We Are!

2009-07-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

We are in South Africa now...plans have changed and we will be here through November. London will just have to wait a bit...:). In the meantime we get to admire the flora and fauna..... more soon!

2009-07-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

"All children must figure out who they are and where they belong. Rooted children can take their clues from history, from their environment, from the traditions they are born into. But mobile children, raised in a world of changing backdrops, are expected to be cultural chameleons, turning themselves emerald in the Amazon forest, tawny on dry Arabian sands. To successfully adapt to the transitions in their lives, they must flow in and out of cultures, taking on the colors of one, slipping from the bonds of another. Some embrace the many influences they are exposed to, while others are more selective, adopting only those aspects of a culture they choose to retain. They are able to immerse themselves in new cultures, keeping pieces of themselves hidden and adapting well with frequent moves.
But what of their interior selves. Some children deal with transition by managing superficial changes with ease, seemingly conforming to the new host culture but camouflaging their inner lives. They learn new languages, wear the proper clothing, play the part like the seasoned performers they have become. Yet others suffer great difficulty in dislocation and cannot make themselves entirely comfortable anywhere. Without the supportive structures of a place they can call home,they flounder in new environments, unable to conform or blend in with their surroundings. Theirs is not the exhilaration of freedom but the loneliness of isolation. Awkward outsiders, they always feel out of place. A gnawing restlessness shadows their lives and prevents them, even in adulthood,from establishing permanent roots. They search for home in the rhythms of breath and time and in attempts to absorb rootedness through ritual and personal connection. Family, religion, language, memories carried within, become the home these children are unable to return to, a home not defined by geography....
The journey to self discovery can be a protracted one for the unrooted child. The restlessness bred into these children because of their parents' mobility leads them to seek identity in something other than place. Roots are not portable; these children cannot secure themselves to an impermanent home. In developing integrated identity, they must piece together self hood in other ways."
Unrooted Childhoods- Memoirs of Growing Up Global
Faith Eidsea and Nina Sichel

Update

2009-05-14T18:51:00.000-07:00

I am moving (along with husband, four daughters and very large dog) to London in two weeks. We will be stopping in South Africa for two months and hope to settle in London in mid August. As a result I have been crazy busy and have not found the time to post on this blog. I still have a lot to say…just not much time to say it in. I am hoping that during our limbo period in South Africa I will be able to start posting again.
Since I am on here right now I will say that I am more “awake” than I have ever been during a transition. I am savouring every minute of it. The pain of leaving family and friends is acute but it is counterbalanced by a deep joy and an overwhelming sense of relief and release and anticipation. I feel like (I imagine:)) a racehorse, waiting for the gate to spring open so that I can run with all my strength. I am very aware of what a luxury it is to be able to relocate on this scale and I am deeply grateful.
As I have packed up our house I have been inspired by Switchfoot’s song,

"This Is Home”

I’ve got my memories
Always inside of me
But I can’t go back
Back to how it was
I believe now
I’ve come too far
No I can’t go back
Back to how it was

Created for a place
I’ve never known

CHORUS:
This is home
Now I’m finally
Where I belong
Where I belong
Yeah, this is home
I’ve been searching
For a place of my own
Now I’ve found it
Maybe this is home
Yeah, this is home

Belief over misery
I’ve seen the enemy
And I won’t go back
Back to how it was

And I've got my heart set on
What happens next
I've got my eyes wide
It’s not over yet
We are miracles
And we’re not alone
Yeah

CHORUS

And now after all
My searching
After all my questions
I’m gonna call it home
I got a brand new mindset
I can finally see
The sunset
I’m gonna call it home
Home

Reawaken

2009-04-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

" We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aids,
but by an infinite expectation of the dawn,

which does not forsake us
even in our soundest sleep....."

Henry David Thoreau

"The gloom of the world
Is but a shadow;
Behind it,
Yet within reach,
Is joy.
Take Joy."

Fra Giovanni

Detached Aloof Pattern

2009-02-17T13:39:00.000-08:00

There are four or five common emotional patterns found in adult missionary kids. I am currently recovering from (among other things:)) the "Detached Aloof" emotional pattern. David L.Wickstrom describes it this way:

"One frequently observed set of behaviours in adult MKs is the detached aloof pattern. They have been hurt many, many times and decide they are never going to get hurt again. The picture that is often presented is: "I am independent; I don't need anybody; everybody can rely on me, but I don't need to rely on anybody else." The person may be very friendly and easy to talk with, but even after spending considerable time, you feel you don't really know who they are.
Many adult MKs have this detached aloof pattern, but it is even more common in adult MKs who attended boarding school as children and decided at some point, "I'm never going to get hurt again; I will be separate from other people and nobody is going to touch me. I am a rock that can handle anything." And many of them do. They are successful, strong, and very good at what they do, but they are also detached and aloof-untouchable. On the surface they may appear very stable; below the surface the reality may be that they don't let themselves feel."

You don't have to have attended boarding school to default to this pattern. You don't have to have experienced trauma or parental separation. This pattern is common to varying degrees in people who have said a lot of goodbyes or experienced cultural isolation at a very young age.

I recognized this pattern in myself when I realized that I NEVER process my feelings in real time. This has made for quite a build up which I have spent the last two years deconstructing and attempting to separate out strands of grief, loss, anger and trauma. I have recently had the opportunity to grieve cleanly, in real time, alongside people whom I have allowed into the process. What a difference!

2009-02-13T11:38:00.000-08:00

"I have often felt like a refugee in my own country. However, when I finally began a conscious effort to reconcile this contradiction (in my late thirties), my heritage turned out to be quite different from the rootless, maladjusted stereotype I had accepted. The more I examined the distinctive combination of grief, alienation,and nostalgia that I associated with the TCK legacy, the more I noticed that many of these "unique" characteristics were also shared by immigrants and refugees. A greater portion of American blues,folk, and rock and roll lyrics seem to be motivated by a nagging sense of loss, a desire for wholeness that is often phrased as a longing for home. Then I began to notice that the Christian sacrament of Communion- by its very name a celebration of community- expresses these same yearnings: "Do this in remembrance of me" Share and be made whole. Be assured that you will find your way home.
My own pilgrimage to remember and be reconciled with a fragmented past has been no less of a redemptive experience- and one equally dependent on the power of community. Instinctively, I understood that to connect more fully in the present- to feel at home- I had to reconnect with my past. My "formative identity", I discovered, included not only the experience of international living, with the attendant cycles of uprooting and reentry, but also the particulars of history and place."

"Rediscovering a Sense of Place"
Paul Asbury Seaman

My Problem

2009-01-29T00:06:00.000-08:00

"My problem is that I'm twenty-three years old and I've already had the experience of a lifetime."

Young foreign aid worker returning to passport country after two years in Colombia.

Re-Entry

2009-01-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

"When I go back I know I shall be out of it; we fellows who've spent our lives out here always are."

Somerset Maugham The Gentleman in the Parlour

Adaptability

2009-01-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

"Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation."

Mohandas Gandhi

Closure

2009-01-01T23:04:00.000-08:00

"Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art of ending."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend."

Shakespeare

Ruth Van Reken's Article on Obama's TCK Team

2008-12-02T22:42:00.000-08:00

Look at this interesting article on Obama's selection of TCKs...

MK Prayer

2008-12-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

Father God,

You have planted us in soil far from our ancestral homes. You have asked us to walk your map and you have led us around the world and back again. We have seen your hand at work and we have felt your presence: in Venezuela, in China, in Indonesia, in Papua New Guinea, in Guatemala, in Japan. We have seen our parents follow your compass and chart their lives by your maps. We thank you for your presence and for your provision. Even as we are grateful we ask for your mercy.

Father God, we, missionary kids from every tribe and culture ask for your comfort. Would you enlarge our hearts to encompass the loss we have experienced? Would you comfort us and remind us of your presence as we say goodbye to friends and family, countries and cultures. We are weary of goodbyes. Sometimes we are weary of hellos.

Would you please draw near to us as we bear witness to a world in turmoil and darkness. We so often inhabit the last outpost,the "last homely house", the no man's land between the light and the pit. We have seen much and experienced much and the scars are on our hearts. Would you please release your healing on eyes that have seen too much too young, on tired and wounded hearts?

Precious Father, most importantly, would you daily remind us of who we are? Please root us in Yourself. Remind us that we find our identity in You alone and in the knowledge that we are strangers and aliens on this planet, passing through and on our way HOME.

Father God please use us for your Kingdom, as your Bridge People, as Restorers of the broken and the fragmented, as your Peacemakers, as those who offer your Comfort and your Healing. Please use our many languages, our many relationships, our longing for adventure, our love and respect for culture and for difference, our passion for the dark and forgotten places on this planet, our heart for the underdog and the marginalized. Please show us how to use our heritage for your purpose, for your kingdom. May it come quickly!!!

Amen

2008-11-08T17:17:00.000-08:00

This short film was created by a TCK and does a great job of showing the complicated cultural bridging that a TCK must do to form a cohesive identity. It is GREAT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfOtZ0Fp1-U

Garden of Exotic Gifts

2008-11-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

"To children who successfully navigate a lifetime of change, the world is a garden of exotic gifts, a house of treasures to explore and take in. Transferred from place to place, young and porous, they collect and absorb experiences, their personalities amalgams of those cultures they internalize and claim as their own. Perched for a while in a new environment, they experience each move as an occasion for growth, a chance to blossom in new ways.
These children see the world in all its richness and variety. Theirs is a privileged life, filled with opportunities to extend and enhance their knowledge of the earth and its people. Bilingual or even multilingual at an early age , immersed in an interrelated, interdependent world community, they are able to enjoy a broader and more mature perspective than many of their more rooted peers. Theirs is a global education. Though they may regret the loss of a unifying tradition or history, they are grateful for the variety of experiences to which they have been exposed."

Unrooted Childhoods- Memoirs of Growing Up Global
Faith Eidse and Nina Sichel

Ahh.....Re-Entry

2008-10-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

"My advice about coming home? Don't."
Japanese businessman

Boundary States

2008-10-27T23:05:00.000-07:00

" Transformation is the true destination of transition, whether it occurs in a myth or in an individual's everyday life. How transition does that is a mystery, but it somehow involves being in a boundary state, where you spend time near a boundary between one state and another, or one life-phase and the next. The borders of Oz are everywhere, although the price of passage to the other side is often nothing less than your life- at least your life as you have known it. "
The Way Of Transition- William Bridges

" Boundary surfaces are everywhere the places where living formative processes can find a hold; be it in cell membranes, surfaces of contact between cells, where life forces are mysteriously present; in the great boundary surfaces between the current systems of the oceans, where various currents flow past each other in different directions- these are known to be particularly rich in fish; or at the infinitely extensive surfaces of the natural and artificial filter systems of the earth, where the water seeping through is purified and given back its vital qualities."
Theodore Schwenck

" Life never presents us with anything which may not be looked upon as a fresh starting point, no less than as a termination."
Andre Gide

Heritage

2008-09-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Critical to the development of an MK's identity is an awareness and acknowledgement of our spiritual heritage. One remarkable member of our tribe is the late Ruth Bell Graham, evengelist Billy Graham's wife. Ruth was a missionary kid to China and attended boarding school in North Korea. She re-entered the U.S. to attend Wheaton College where she met Billy Graham. They married and had five children. Ruth credited her sacrifical sharing of her husband ( with the world!)to her heart for the lost which was kindled at a very early age in China. Ruth's faith sustained her during her long separations from her husband. The poem below shows the depth of her character and her awareness of her identity in Christ as she departs China for the U.S. to attend college:

Test me, Lord, and give me strength
to meet each test
unflinching, unafraid;
not striving nervously to do my best,
not self-assured, or careless as in jest,
but with Your aid.

Purge me, Lord, and give me grace
to bear the heat
of cleansing flame;
not bitter at my lowly lot, but meet
to bear my share of suffering and keep sweet,
in Jesus' Name.

Ruth Bell Graham
Aboard the S.S. President McKinley, leaving China for college in America. 1937

Perpetuating Marginality

2008-09-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

More from Mary Edwards Wertsch:

"....military brats spend a great deal more of their childhoods on the outside looking in than on the inside looking out.....Standing on the sidelines observing other people's in-groups becomes a way of life- and the outsider way of life that was forced by circumstance during childhood is then perpetuated into adulthood by military brats who know no other way to be....While it is hard to perpetually live the outsider role, it is harder still to abandon it. The outsider role is the central paradox of a military brat's life. A sense of belonging is our single greatest need and our single greatest quest- yet many military brats perpetuate their own marginality by making choices that are guaranteed to keep them on the outside."

Psychological Diaspora

2008-09-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

Mary Edwards Wertsch, a TCK/military brat who authored the landmark study," Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress", writes about belonging and loss in this excerpt from her essay, entitled, "Outside Looking In":

"The first legacy of military childhood transience is what might be called the psychological diaspora. As adults most of us manage to slow or stop the moving- and yet still we find ourselves caught up in a strange migration. It is a migration of the soul, all the more mysterious to us because it has no clear origin and no certain goal.
There is only one antidote to the angst of the diaspora. Belonging. It is not easy for a military brat to learn what that even means, much less to find it. Yet belonging is the single greatest quest of our lives, a quest that lives in many of us as a powerful unnamed yearning.
My feeling is that it is crucial for military brats to put the right name to this yearning, face our unrequited need to belong, and address it as best we can.... Another corollary seems to be that for military brats, a prerequisite to belonging is grieving over not belonging and repeated loss. That stands to reason: it is necessary to break down the old immunity before one can become attached to something new. And belonging, more than anything else, is about attachment."

" I Have To Do It On My Own..."

2008-09-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

"I had a profound spiritual life the year before I went to Taitung. I learned to pray to God and felt close to Him. However because everything in my set changed upon arriving Taiwan, and I had very little emotional support. I felt like even God Himself did not care anymore. I felt like He didn't hear my prayers. Later on, I found out God had been faithful to me, but it was my feelings towards my parents, my sister and my environment that caused me to lose my trust in God. Because of my feelings, here are the lies I believed:

'When I experience grief, loss and culture shock, God is not with me and He does not help me. He doesn't care how I feel and He won't be there to see me through. Moreover, significant people in my life will not be there for me as well. I have to do it on my own.' "

Spiritual Heritage Of TCKs
Cindy Loong

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel,
'My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by
my God?' Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary,and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Isaiah 40:27-31

2008-09-11T00:24:00.001-07:00

" When a family embarks on a missionary career, they have chosen to be more stretched culturally, personally, and spiritually. This is not because God considers them better than others, but because God has chosen to reveal His grace through their lives. The pain of the relational, cultural and even spiritual gaps of the missionary life is part and parcel of the missionary calling. It is what missionary families sign up for."

Growing Up Global- What a TCK's Life Is Like
Compiled and Edited By Cindy Loong