We have just completed our first month in Germany. We have moved into our rented row house and received our shipment from Spain, which included all our furniture and everything we didn't take to Texas for our 6 month stateside assgnment...which is basically everything we own except for about 8 suitcases of stuff.
Last week was the 1st week of school for Shelley and the kids. Shelley is teaching middle school English (some of you knew she was supposed to teach ESL, but that's another story for another time). Shalyn is in the 10th grade and is playing on the jv volleyball team. Shaphan is in the 8th grade and doing well. They are all a part of BFA--Black Forest Academy. This is a school like none we have ever seen before. There are about 310 students and over 90% are MKs (missionary kids) or the new more general term is TCK (third culture kid). These students have grown up in over 50 countries and together speak over 40 languages, even though most of their parents hold US or Canadian passports. Their parents live and work throughout Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East with the majority of BFA students living in one of the many boarding dorms scattered throughout the surrounding villages around Kandern.
Our kids, which are now 13 and 15, were 2 and 3 when we moved overseas. Other than a couple semesters in Amarillo schools while on stateside assignment and one short attempt at homeschooling, our kids have always attended German or Spanish schools. Shalyn and Shaphan are textbook TCKs. A third culture kid is one that has a home culture (in our case, Texas) and a host culture (again for us, Germany and Spain). They are called TCKs because they are very often never completely "at home" in the country where they were born or where their parents have their passports, but they never feel completely like a local/insider in their host culture either. Those who study these things say that a TCK may really only feel "at home" with others like him/herself in a community of others who have had the same life experience...and this connection with other TCKs is described as a nebulous and hard to grasp 3rd culture somewhere in-between reality and never-never-land. This is not to say that this 3rd culture does not really exist--it does. We have heard TCKs say of each other, "We are each other's country". These global nomads find instant comfort in each other's presence and that has been our life experience for the last almost 12 years.
BFA is like a TCK world headquarters. We don't know what the future holds, but at least the hope is that Shalyn can finish her last 3 years of high school here before heading off into the world on her own. We are thankful for her sake that she will have this time to be with "her people". As for Shaphan, we can't make any promises since we've never stayed in one place very long...God only knows...and in Him we will trust.
