Wedding Weekend

What a joy it was to participate in the celebration of my sister Lauren's wedding this weekend! I'm so thankful for my new brother-in-law Wei Chi and really appreciate the intentionality of both he and Lauren in including me in so many details of their lives even though I lived in Africa for most of their dating time. They are both incredibly fun people who prioritize relationships, so as you can imagine, their wedding was a blast! They met through ministry with Young Life (mentoring high school students), and it was such a blessing to see so many students drive 8+ hours to be present for the event as a testimony to the impact Lauren and Wei Chi have had on their lives. I loved getting to know Wei Chi's family and friends (coming from Beijing, Singapore, Australia, Hawaii, etc.) as well as reconnecting with Lauren's friends and our family at this once in a lifetime event. What an interesting and encouraging community we enjoyed for these four days of wedding festivities! Following are some pictures from the weekend:

 Wedding rehearsal with Lauren wearing a tailor made dress from China

 Lauren also brought Emma back a Chinese dress. The kids did amazingly well at walking down the aisle both for the rehearsal and the wedding. Pretty impressive for a 3 year old and an 18 month old!

 We bridesmaids loved the Chinese robes Lauren gave us at the bridesmaid brunch. (She visited Beijing, where Wei Chi's parents live, last month.)

 Parents of the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner - delicious, multiple course, authentic Chinese dinner including duck and lobster!

 Sisters

 My niece Emma - flower girl

 My sister Leslie and nephew Samuel - ring bearer. He was very excited to walk down the "island" and was hoping for the chance to preach at the pulpit. Lauren gave him the opportunity during the rehearsal. :)

 Bridal party

 Now the Pfister/Lutz/Wong family

 Tea Ceremony upholding the Chinese tradition that, as a couple, their first act is to bless their elders by serving them tea. I was thankful for the opportunity to learn so much about Lauren's new cultural heritage.

 Lots of fun dancing at the reception

Family photo at Sunday brunch. I'm so thankful for this family time. What an awesome family God has blessed me with!

Grief and goodbyes

Ebenezer stones representing what we're remembering and taking away from SPLICE

The last few days of  SPLICE were appropriately focused on grief and goodbyes. Not anyone's favorite topic, but a very necessary one in the highly mobile missionary life. I appreciated the opportunity to evaluate how to value relationships more in the goodbyes rather than simply pulling away quickly or prematurely to avoid pain. Insulating oneself against the pain can result in also insulating against the joys. If the relationship is valued, goodbyes should hurt! In addition to goodbyes to loved ones, we also talked about some of the other losses of missionary life that need to be grieved. Each of the below items resonated with me as things I did feel were lost in Kenya and expect to lose again in France/Burundi or already have during this transition year.

1) Stable Nest or Home. Loss of the familiar place offering warmth and security. This is especially relevant this year as each of the McCropders have felt "homeless" for a short or long period of time. It's a continuous stress to be on the road, living out of a suitcase, always a house guest. And though we are so, so thankful for the incredible hospitality of so many, we do look forward to "settling" for 10 months in France for language school before finally reaching our homes in Burundi. 

2) Safety. "This loss is likely the most underestimated in missions. Not judged merely by what has happened to you but by what could happen and what has happened to others." Coming from a culture that highly values safety, comfort, and justice, this is a definite concern that needs to be considered in depth and not glossed over. In Kenya, the loss manifested itself for me in a loss of independence. I never went anywhere by myself except the hospital. That was a challenge given my comfort in doing things myself in the U.S. 

3) Competence. This is a big one! To go back to being a toddler again in my ability to communicate is a huge stress. Arriving in Kenya just out of residency with almost no tropical medicine training and suddenly responsible for training interns was a huge blow to my sense of competence. That's why I kept writing about God's strength in weakness! So God does bring good from the loss, but it is a legitimate grief. 

4) Identity. So who are we now? Some of my fellow SPLICE missionaries are no longer pastors or teachers but are now language learners. I, too, won't be practicing medicine for the next year and a half as I focus on learning French and Kirundi. So for now I've lost the doctor identity. In Kenya, I remember feeling like I'd lost a lot of my identity. No one knew my family or history. I'd had an identity of being interested in missions and always traveling, but that wasn't really relevant when I was actually on the mission field. 

5) Support system. "Welcome to a vocation that is a revolving door of relationships." The support system back in the U.S. is no longer adequate. New roots need to be put down. I definitely missed my church, my small group, my like-minded friends. Thankfully, God provided a new support system in Kenya - especially with the McCropder team - and so I look forward to building on that more in France and Burundi. 

6) Quickly and easily attained goals. Wouldn't it be nice if I could snap my fingers and automatically learn the language? And if other cultures valued efficiency and productivity like Americans do? :) I am learning to be more relationship and less task oriented, but that's an uphill battle. I pray especially for a gift of supernatural patience in dealing with the loss of quickly and easily attained goals!

Prayers grieving our losses in these various areas

 The last day of SPLICE we said goodbye to our friends. This was surprisingly difficult. In just a few weeks, we'd become quite close. There were 45 adults & 32 kids heading to 20 countries (most in sensitive parts of the world where security will be a definite concern). Given the emotionally intense nature of the course, the shared meals and free time and late night games, and our like-minded purposes and similar experiences, our friendships grew deep a lot quicker than expected. I miss that community now. But I also look forward to random meetings around the world in the years to come.

John (fellow World Harvest missionary headed to South Sudan), Norman family (Cambodia), Robin (SPLICE instructor from S. Africa), Hinton family (headed to Paris - hope to see them during language school in France)

Fellow sub-Saharan Africa missionary - the Owen family will be relatively nearby :) in Malawi

Judy & Alan Norman - OB/Gyn and Med/Peds docs headed to Cambodia

Nate & Bethany Johnson headed to Austria

Psalm 139:

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

TCK

What is a TCK? A third culture kid is "an individual who having spent a significant part of the developmental years in a culture other than the parents' culture, develops a sense of relationship to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Elements from each culture are incorporated into the life experience, but the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience."

So basically, as a result of cross cultural experiences growing up, TCKs end up with a unique third culture that is not quite their parents' culture but also not completely their host culture. As you can imagine, this results in blessings as well as challenges. In the end, there's no way to separate out what's "American" and what's "French" (or Kenyan, Burundian, etc.) - the different aspects of cultures are thoroughly mixed in the individual. This can result in an identity crisis (belonging "everywhere and nowhere") if kids aren't fully grounded in their identity in Christ and aren't encouraged in their own unique personality and culture.

Rachel and Maria (Cambodia TCKs) and I with deer bones found at MTI

TCKs (N Africa and Honduras) rock climbing in Colorado

TCKs generally enjoy amazing life experiences. They can start stories with, "When I was alligator hunting..." or "When I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro..." They live a much bigger, much less ethnocentric worldview than their American peers. They may speak multiple languages. Their best friend may be the neighbor living in a mud hut or another TCK from somewhere else in the world. If they're also missionary kids, they may get the opportunity to be involved in ministry in unique ways like Anna P. and Anna F. helping hold babies in the nursery in Kenya.

One challenge they typically face is that of high mobility. Their families frequently cross the globe. The average length of time a missionary family stays in one place is 18 months. This can lead to pretty significant "unsettling" in kids' lives. And even if they don't move, those around them are constantly coming and going, too. Short term missions teams come and go. They connect with another missionary kid for a few months and then they're gone. If they don't learn to grieve these goodbyes, they can end up living a dis-engaged life as they grow up - not committing or deepening relationships with people or places to avoid the pain of goodbyes.

Saying goodbye to friends at MTI with Nadya (TCK headed to Russia)

Goodbye to Hannah and Rachel (moving to Cambodia)

Goodbye to my newest pediatric TCK patient 

So, why am I interested in TCKs? Why this blog post? Well, a couple reasons:

1) I'm aunt (and pediatrician) to lots of TCKs. Paradoxically, it's both sad and difficult to live far from biologic family but also such a joy and blessing to experience the unique "family" bonds that form on the mission field. I take my role of auntie to the missionary kids seriously. I've already packed some of the toys and craft supplies to bring to Burundi for the kids to play with at my house! And they emphasized at MTI the positive impact a non-parent adult can have on TCKs in encouraging them in their identity in Christ, involving them in ministry, and listening to them in their struggles.

2) I'm friends to adult TCKs.

Jason and John both grew up as missionary kids in Africa and are adult TCKs. Which means that more than half of our McCropder team is composed of TCKs.

3) I realized recently that I actually have a lot of TCK characteristics myself.

I definitely experienced high mobility growing up. I lived in seven cities (five states) before age 18 (as a business kid, not a missionary kid). And in retrospect, I didn't learn to say goodbye well. From ages 13-16 (a significant part of my developmental years), my family lived in a completely different culture on the Mexican border. I learned Spanish, developed cross cultural friendships, and participated in ministry in both Mexico and South Texas. At age 13, I did not adapt well - the chaos phase of transition was long and painful! But the transforming process of those three years was significant in improving my adaptability and cultural flexibility, widening my worldview, and heightening my interest in other cultures and places. So maybe I'm a TCK, too!

If you're interested in reading more, I recommend the book "Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds" by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken

SPLICE: Conflict

To read the paradoxical story of this big tree, click here.

I continue to learn so much through this missionary training course. It's been valuable for reviewing and debriefing my two years in Kenya, considering how to engage with the cultures and languages in France and Burundi, and reflecting on handling life's events such as adversity, conflict, transitions, stress, differences, goodbyes.

A common statistic quoted in missionary circles is that the number one reason missionaries leave the mission field is conflict with other missionaries. I'm so thankful for my team and how God has knit us together and even grafted in new members over the last year. By His grace, we lived/worked/socialized/ministered/worshipped together for two years in Kenya and miraculously still really enjoy being together. We've made big group decisions by collaborating until everyone was on the same page. I know conflict is inevitable, but we pray God will continue to enable us to be peacemakers for each other and for those around us.

In light of all that, though, two days of this missionary training were focused on conflict. I was unaware of this before, but it turns out that there are five conflict languages just like there are five love languages. Maturity in conflict involves flexibility in speaking another person's conflict language instead of just your own. We each identified our primary conflict language, joined small groups accordingly, and discussed the strengths and weaknesses of our conflict style and that of the other four. The next day, we intersected with each of the other groups and shared positive feedback as well as constructive criticism. Our assignment also included individual phone calls to a friend or teammate and a family member to discuss our conflict styles, how that affects others, and what we could improve on.

The whole exercise, while emotionally draining, was incredibly insightful. I had always just assumed I was terrible at conflict because I'm an avoider, but I learned there are strengths as well as weaknesses in that style. I also have hope for improvement in the weakness areas and in learning to speak other conflict languages. I look forward to discussing these unique evaluations with my teammates more when we are all together in France and trust the conversation will be valuable in continuing to establish team unity and love.

So, what's your conflict language?

1) Shark - Competing style. Goals are highly important, relationships less so. Conflicts settled by one person winning and another losing. Advantages - useful with quick decision/action is required, when important policies must be implemented, when being right is what matters most, when the issue is trivial and others don't care what happens. High assertiveness in conflict, low cooperativeness.

2) Fox - Compromising style. In seeking a compromise, they give up part of their goals and persuade the other person to do the same. Win a little, lose a little solution. Valuable when goals of both parties are moderately important but not worth fighting for, when a quick solution is required and both parties can give up something, when time pressures don't allow a search for a mutually satisfying solution. Medium assertiveness and cooperativeness.

3) Turtle - Avoiding style. Withdrawal to avoid conflicts. May result in slow death of relationships. Useful in postponing tension, when risk outweighs gain, when others can solve the problem more effectively, when the issues are small. Low assertiveness and cooperativeness in conflict.

4) Teddy bear - Accommodating style. Relationship is of great importance, their personal agenda less so. People pleasers. Smooth over conflict for fear of harming the relationship. Useful to preserve harmony, prevent competition, when issues are not important to the individual. Low assertiveness and high cooperativeness.

5) Owl - Collaborating style. High value of both their goals and their relationships. View conflicts as problems to be solved and seek a solution everyone will be happy with. Want all tensions and negative feelings to be fully resolved. Advantageous in mutual exploration of new approaches and mutual resolution of conflict. Results in win/win permanent solution. Can be time consuming and result in analysis paralysis. High assertiveness and high cooperativeness.