“I hate it here in Guatemala. I miss my friends, and I want to go back home,” sobbed Anita. (Her name has been changed.) The eyes of every sixth-grader were riveted on me for my response. How could I calm this hurting heart?

“I know how you feel,” I gently responded. “I left a job I loved, my family, my friends, and three grandchildren to come here to teach. The adjustment will be difficult, but let’s do it together. We can ask for the Lord’s help, because He said He’d be here for us. We are here in response to Him.” She gave me a half smile as her eyes softened through the tears.

Anita’s reaction was typical with missionary children. (I’ve chosen to use this term, because I feel God’s calls both the children and their parents.) From my perspective, her cries were real but I didn’t know how to counsel her. I came to Guatemala by choice, but it sounded like she didn’t have a choice. I wanted to know more about MKs, so I started doing some research.

Missionary kids leave their familiar culture and do not grow up in it, because they have moved to a foreign country. Thrown into a new culture, they are seen as visitors. They are literally in this culture, but not a part of it. The MKs are stranded in-between the two cultures looking for a life raft. Third-culture kids was a term coined in the 1950s to describe what happens to these in-betweeners. They develop their own place to belong; an emotionally and mentally painful process for most of them. They face a testing time when they go back to their parent’s home country for a visit. The children find the social rules and customs are different, and they identify little with their birth country. Family members treat them as visitors, just as the indigenous do. Of course, there are varying degrees of this, depending on how long the child has been out of their family’s country

My classroom at CAG (Christian Academy of Guatemala) contained ninety percent of these children. I knew I would see the struggles of these MKs as they became global citizens. Wikipedia defines a global citizen: “as a person who places their identity with a ‘global community’ above their identity as a citizen of a particular nation or place.” CAG was considered a third-culture environment, and my students would need to make many adjustment to find their sense of belonging. On top of that, their scholastic education had to be fitted into the picture as well. I faced a great learning curve right along with those kids. With the grace of God, I wanted to help each youngster in my care to grab hold of how important they were to our Lord. God had a plan for their lives, and He would help them walk it out.

It is said that until you walk in someone else’s shoes, you can’t truly understand what that person is going through. I could only imagine what each of these children felt as they joined the mix of global citizens. The information I needed to help them didn’t come with my master’s degree. But God had a plan, and we could trust Him. He guided me and the MKs that year in incredible ways. We grew together in our learning.

I’m sure there are some of you readers who have had the experience of being an MK, or know of someone who went through similar situations. I’d love to hear your story. We have MKs here at Shadow, and I know the parents would enjoy reading any of your responses.