Towards a Theology of Limnality:

A Local Gospel for Global Souls

by John Hubers
December, 2007

Introduction

It is necessary not to be “myself,” still less to be “ourselves.”

The city gives one the feeling of being at home.
We must take the feeling of being at home into exile.
We must be rooted in the absence of a place.

-- Simone Weil1

Global nomad Pico Iyer begins his literary reflection2 on the contemporary phenomenon
of peripatetic globalized citizenship with this quote from French philosopher and poet, Simone
Weil. It captures well the sense of rootlessness that accompanies the experience of those Iyer
labels “Global Souls.” Iyer himself belongs to this group, describing himself as a “permanent
alien”3 in all three cultures which have shaped his existence.
I know a little about the Global Soul in part because, having grown up simultaneously in
three cultures, none of them fully my own, I acquired very early the sense of being loosed
from time as much as from space – I had no history, I could feel, and lived under the
burden of no home; and when I look at many of the most basic details of my life, I
realize that even though they hardly look strange to me, they would have seemed
surreal to every one of my grandparents.4

Iyer believes that his experience is uniquely not that of the group of global nomads who

will be the focus of this paper, 5 but the sense of limnality that he describes -- his “in-between”

identity built on no single national or cultural foundation -- is something with which anyone who

has lived for significant life-formative periods of time in countries other than their own can

relate.

My wife and I have had this experience, as thirteen of our thirty three years of marriage

have been spent in three different countries in the Middle East. We can relate to Iyer’s

experience in a way that other less traveled souls may not. However, our children, who are now
twenty-five and twenty-nine, can relate even better. Their experience of growing up in-between

cultures, fully belonging neither to one nor the other, gave shape to their identities in a way that

only tangentially shaped ours. To us it was a cross-cultural adventure. To them it was an

experience that that gave formative definition to their identities during their critical

developmental years. With this they became members of a community of global nomads whose

limnal existence is so definitive of who they are that those who have done significant research in

this field believe it is legitimate to categorize them as a “third culture.” They are, to use the term

first coined by sociologist Ruth Useem in the 1950s, Third Culture Kids (here after TCKs).6

Third Culture Kids

It has been my privilege to learn about this unique community of global nomads not only

through the experience of my children, but also through an involvement in the lives of the people

I met during the time I was privileged to serve as pastor of three different international churches

representing dozens of different nationalities over a period of ten years. These were Protestant

expatriate congregations in the Arabian (Persian) Gulf whose membership represented people

not only of a diverse ethnicity, but diverse socio-economic levels, as well. I also served for five

years as a denominational mission executive for the Reformed Church in America, the duties of

which included pastoral responsibilities for missionary families. Several of the missionary

parents were themselves adult TCKs (hereafter ATCKs). Given the importance of “participant

observation”7 in the field of cultural/anthropological studies, it could thus be said that the

research for this paper began many years ago. It was not the dedicated research of a field

anthropologist, but it certainly was marked by the same methodology, which Dewalt and Dewalt

characterize as “a method in which a researcher takes part in the daily activities, rituals,

1
interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning the explicit and tacit

aspects of their life routines and their culture.”8

This paper will draw on those observations, as well as the observations of scholars who

have done extensive research on the TCK experience, to accomplish three purposes:

1. Identify who it is that makes up this “third culture” while at the same time asking

whether or not it is justified to treat them as a separate cultural group.

2. Define their essential characteristics.

3. Draw on these observations to suggest a possible approach to a “local”

inculturated biblical theology.

That this final purpose is the most critical task of this paper, at least for those

TCKs, who would identify themselves as Christian, is underscored by what Stephen

Bevans observes about the nature of culture and theology:

The empiricist notion of culture . . . defines culture as a set of meanings and values that
informs a way of life . . . [I]f one works out of an empirical notion of culture, there not
only can be a theology for every culture and period of history; there must be. Theology,
according to Lonergan, is what mediates between a cultural matrix and the significance
and role of religion in that matrix. Theology, in other words, functions precisely as the
way that religion makes sense within that particular culture.9

Definitions

As indicated above, the term Third Culture Kid was coined by sociologist Ruth Useem in

the 1950s. The dawning realization that such a culture existed arose out of work she and her

husband had been doing on Native American Indian reservations ten years previous.10

Our findings from the Sioux Reservation study started us thinking about people who
cross societal borders under the aegis of an organized endeavor and whose work or occu-
pational roles are involved in relating two or more societies, or sections thereof, to each
other.11

2
 It was her own experience of crossing international borders with her family on an

assignment in India that led Useem to begin using the term “third culture” to describe the identity

of a group of people whose cross cultural experience impacted their lives in significant ways.

The term Third Culture Kids became a subset of this term based on observations she made about

how this experience uniquely impacted the lives of those whose developmental years were spent

in a culture other than that of their parents.12

Useem’s initial research had a relatively narrow focus, concentrating on the children of

American diplomats, missionaries and business people whose presence in a second culture was

dictated by their vocational choices. But those who developed her research further came to

realize early on that the characteristics the Useems had discovered among this group were

shared by a much broader cross section of people with significant cross cultural experience.

Two of the scholars who would become the predominant spokespersons for this field of study,

Ruth E. Van Reken (who is herself an ATCK), and the late David C. Pollock, would expand the

designation in significant ways in a book which has become the defining standard for research in

this field: Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among World. 13 In a foreword to

the 2001 edition of the book, Norma M. McCragg notes how they have done this, at the same

time cautioning that making the term too inclusive of cross cultural experiences “risks being

diluted beyond use for both researchers and the TCKs themselves.”14

The original intent of the term, used by Dr. Ruth Useem in her research in the 1960’s,
referred to children whose parents’ work took them abroad to live. The authors have
included the children of what they term temporary refugees – those whose parents take
them abroad to avoid civil strife, for instance. They have also included those who have
entered another culture (the Native American community) without leaving their
country. In addition, Ruth Van Reken mentions that Dr. Useem herself now refers to
TCKs simply as children who accompany their parents into another culture.15

3
 Debbie Carlson, who, like Ruth Van Reken is an ATCK herself, gives a working

definition which allows us to move towards an understanding of what is unique to this identity.

In this case she chooses to use a term that is used interchangeably for TCK or ATCK in this

literature (and this paper) – global nomad:

A global nomad is an individual who, spending a significant part of their development

years in another culture, develops some sense of belonging to both the host country and
the home culture, while not having a sense of total ownership in either. Elements from
both (or multiple) cultures are blended, resulting in the third culture.16

The significance of this identification is best understood when measured by the impact it

has on those who fit its designation, the global nomads themselves. As Carlson’s definition

suggests, global nomads are individuals who feel themselves to be caught between at least two

cultures, finding their self identity defined by neither one nor the other, but rather by a hybrid of

the two (or more). The sense of impermanence associated with their non-residential alien status

makes a full acculturation to their host country problematical as does their sense of “otherness.”

At the same time that very experience of living as “other” in the host country shapes their lives in

significant ways that give them a different identity from those who have grown up as residential

citizens of their passport country (or ethnic group). This marks them as being “different” no

matter where they go, thus the “third” culture designation. Anora Egan, whose parents moved

every year or two to a variety of different Middle Eastern countries during her developmental

years, captures well what this means in an article she wrote for a book which collects between its

covers a wealth of stories by and about global nomads, appropriately entitled, Uprooted

Childhoods.

Although I was born in Boston, I didn’t feel I was a real American, probably because
I spent so much time living outside of America. I held the passport, and America is
where I came “home” to, but I didn’t feel I fit in. Being American was more than just
having the passport; I had to be able to talk the talk. I needed the right clothes. The
right postures. The right expressions, and the right common experiences. I only had

4
 the passport.17

We watched with a good deal of parental pain what this meant for our son when we

returned to the States after spending ten years abroad in three different locations in two different

Arabian (Persian) Gulf countries. To all appearances he was American. He spoke English like

an American. He liked the same sorts of things that other American boys his age (14) did– video

games, girls, baggy t-shirts and baseball (he was part of the very first Little League team in

Bahrain which had a notably international roster). He had gone to an “American” school (along

with students from 52 other countries!). But his life-shaping experiences were not American.

When we returned to the States he had the passport, but not the “talk” or exactly the right clothes

or posture or expressions. Even the music he listened to was different as expats in Bahrain

tended to lean towards the British charts. But at the same time he was desperate to “fit in” as all

14 year olds are. So he tried to copy what he heard and saw without ever getting it quite right,

all the time being pushed further to the fringe of the various sub groups that made up the youth

culture of his school. And being unable adequately to articulate his feelings or understand the

unique nature of his identity in the same way his elder sister could (who had had the privilege of

spending two weeks in a missionary kid “re-entry” camp when we returned), he slipped into a

kind of social and academic dysfunctionalism from which he has only recently recovered.

The difference it makes for someone to be able to understand that they are a part of a

“third culture,” with the socially validating force this carries, is difficult to overstate. Now their

marginalization becomes less marginalizing; their experience less that of someone who doesn’t

“get it” than that of someone who belongs to a group of peers who “get it” in uniquely different

ways. Ruth Van Reken recalls what a watershed moment it was for her when she first discovered

that she was part of this “third culture.”

5
 Sometimes there is a specific moment in a specific day that creeps up so unannounced,
it is hardly recognized for its significance, but ever afterward it marks the point when
everything changed. Life is never quite the same again. I, and countless others who have
grown up in countries and cultures outside that of our parents, have known such a
moment. It is that first instance we learn we have a name – that we are third culture kids
(TCKs) or adult third culture kids (ATCKs).

A Separate “Culture?”

The question this raises, particularly given the fact that those who belong to this “third

culture” rarely recognize that they belong to it without having it pointed out to them, is whether

or not it is legitimate to identify it as a separate culture. Ruth Useem obviously sees it this way,

as do the other sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists who have done research in this

field. David Pollack and Ruth Van Reken in particular make a strong case for such a designation

over against the objections of those who, noting the diverse cultural backgrounds and life

experiences of those who are included in this “third culture”, point out that there is not enough

commonality to justify the term.18 This is how Pollack and Van Reken respond:

[I]f culture in its broadest sense is a way of life shared with others, there’s no question
that, in spite of their differences, TCKs of all stripes and persuasions in countless
countries share remarkably important life experiences through the very process of
living in and among different cultures – whether or not they grew up in a specific
local expatriate community. Further, the kinds of experiences they share tend to
affect the deeper rather than the more superficial parts of their personal or cultural
being.19

The issue here is how to define culture, which is never an easy task. Robert Schreiter

notes, in fact, that “. . . there is no definition of culture that is widely agreed upon.”20 At the

same time, no matter what definition is utilized, it does appear as if this is stretching the

boundaries beyond where many would place them (particularly those who work with integrated

models of culture)21 as Pollack and Van Reken themselves acknowledge with the caveats they

6
offer (“if culture in its broadest sense”). A more standard working definition of culture such as

the following given by Charles Kraft in his book, Anthropology for Christian Witness, shows

why this might be problematical.

Culture may be defined as the “total life way of a people, the social legacy the individual
acquires from his group,” a people’s design for living” (Kluckhohn 1049a:17). Or, to be
more specific, we may see a culture as a society’s complex, integrating coping
mechanism, consisting of learned, patterned concepts and behavior, plus their underlying
perspectives (worldview) and resulting artifacts (material culture).22

Kraft’s definition carries underlying assumptions about people living together as a group

with a common history linked to a spatially defined “society.” One could in this sense perhaps

speak of the culture of American expatriates in Bahrain or Japanese expatriates in Chicago or

Filipino expatriates in Tokyo, but given the different life experiences and wildly divergent

“world views” of these disparate expatriate communities is it possible to say that they can at the

same time be categorized as belonging together to a “third culture?”

The most compelling answers Pollack and Van Reken give to this question come in the

form of anecdotal evidence, allowing the voices of the global nomads themselves to give proof to

a shared cultural identity. One such piece of evidence is found in a long conversation they

record in their book which grew out of a chance encounter between a young woman from

Switzerland who grew up in Hong Kong with a middle aged Australian woman who spent a good

deal of her life in Brazil. What is striking here is the almost immediate recognition of a common

bond.

Erika couldn’t believe it. For the first time in years she could speak the language of
her soul without needing a translator. A space inside that had almost dried up suddenly
began filling and then overflowing with the joy of being understood in a way that
needed no explanation.23

The Deterritorialization of Culture

7
 Ulrike Schuerkens and Helmuth Berking write in two different essays in Global Forces

and Local Life-Worlds24 about the “deterritorialization” of cultural identities under the force of

globalization. This has led, says Schuerkens, to “a restructuring of spaces” and “the

disappearance of fixed links of human beings to towns, villages and national frontiers.”25 What

this means is that spatially defined concepts of culture can no longer be seen as the only or even

primary cultural constructs, giving even more credence to the non-spatially defined concept of

culture suggested by the term, “Third Culture Kid.” Shared experiences may, in today’s global

village, be even more definitive of identity than shared spaces. In the words of Berking:

What deterritorialization means is that we are increasingly faced with spaces not bound in
territorial terms (the space of flows) and with forms of sociation defined in terms other
than territorial (diasporic public spheres and trans-localities), the global effect of
which is a systematic subversion of the principle of territoriality on which states,
local cultures and collective identities rest.26

Sociologist Ted Ward noted already in 1984 that TCKs “were the prototype citizens of

the future.”27 This, perhaps, is what he had in mind – the fact that the processes of globalization

were creating a growing culture or at least subculture of people who are linked less by spatially

defined categories than shared cross cultural experience, in this case the shared experience of a

globalized identity with ties to no one fixed location. Pico Iyer’s insightfully poetic observations

of the lifestyle of the “global soul” help give definition to what this is about.

High above the clouds, in an alternative plane of existence – a duty-free zone, in a way,
in which everyone around him was a stranger – the Global Soul would be facing not just
new answers to the old questions but a whole new set of questions, as he lived through
shifts that the traditional passenger on ocean liner or long-distance train could never
have imagined. His sense of obligation would be different, if he felt himself no part of
no fixed community, and his sense of home, if it existed at all, would lie in the ties
and talismans he carried round with him. Insofar as he felt a kinship with anyone, it
would, most likely, be with other members of the Deracination-state.28

Cross Cultural Kids

8
 In a recent (2005) article in Intercultural Management Quarterly, Ruth Van Reken and

Paulette Bethel seek to expand the boundaries of the TCK concept to be more inclusive of the

ever expanding categories of “global souls,” or more to the point, to include those who in one

way or another find their identities shaped by the intersection of cultures. In this case they

prefer to use the term “Cross-cultural Kid” (CCK) defined as “a person who has lived in – or

meaningfully interacted with – two or more cultural environments for a significant period of time

during developmental years”29 which they then break down into different sub-categories. This

has the effect of both preserving the uniqueness of each specific experience while at the same

time tying them together in meaningful ways. The sub-categories in this case include, along with

TCKs and ATCKs, bi/multi-cultural/and/or bi/multi-racial children, children of immigrants,

children of refugees, children of minorities, international adoptees and what they call “domestic”

TCKs – “children whose parents have moved in or among various sub-cultures within that

child’s home country.”30

Van Reken and Bethel see two benefits to be gained in expanding the boundaries of the

“third culture” designation in this way. In the first place it helps prevent what Janet Bennet calls

“terminal uniqueness,”31 where children (or adults who have been raised cross culturally) who

are part of one of these more specific sub-cultures do not have to feel that their experience

marginalizes them as much as they may otherwise believe.32 It may also help those who may be

in a more privileged social position (which is often the case with more traditional TCKs,

particularly those whose parents are part of the diplomatic or business community) to recognize a

certain commonality of experience with other marginalized groups, creating empathy where such

empathy could be beneficial for all. At the same time by keeping these groups as sub categories,

rather than subsuming them under one overarching “third culture” categorization, it allows what

9
is specific to the experience of each group to be acknowledged and understood. In this way it

“validates the different ways children experience cultural mixing while they can still identify

with the larger whole”33 and may at the same time answer Norma M. McCragg’s previously

mentioned concern about being too inclusive with the TCK label.

Van Reken and Bethel acknowledge that at this point their CCK categorization remains a

largely hypothetical model with little research to back it up. It exists in this sense less as a

working model than a way to encourage “a new level of dialogue on how interacting closely with

several cultural worlds during developmental years may affect a child in the long term.”34 But

despite its tentative nature it does underscore what students of globalization are acknowledging,

that old ways of determining cultural identity linked as they were primarily to spatial categories

with a relatively fixed set of suppositions needs to give way to new ways of understanding

culture through the experience of those who are most impacted by the deterritorilizing nature of

globalization. TCKs could indeed, in this sense, be “the prototype citizens of the future” (which

is already here!).

Characteristics

A key characteristic of global nomads has already been identified, which is their sense of

living in a limnal space between cultures. This term, used by Barbara Schaetti and Sheila

Ramsey in an article on “The Global Nomad Experience,”35 is a transliteration of a classical

Greek word which is defined as “an in-between time when what was, is no longer, and what will

be, is not yet,”36 which is how many TCKs feel when they are making the transition between first

and second cultures. For some this sense of limnality remains forever a part of their identity.

Fumitaka Matsuoka speaks of her hyphenated Asian-American identity in these terms, claiming

10
that this is the world she has always inhabited, a world she describes in a way that would

resonate with the experience of most any global nomad.

It is at once the world of isolation and intimacy, desolation and creativity. A person in
a liminal world is poised in uncertainty and ambiguity between two or more social
constructs, reflecting in the soul the discords and harmonies, repulsions and attractions.
One of the constructs is likely to be dominant . . . Within such a dominant construct
one strives to be and yet one finds oneself to be a peripheral member forced to remain
in the world of in-between-ness.37

Closely related to this are feelings of marginality which are particularly acute when

TCKs return to their passport “home.” Barbara Schaetti, who identifies herself as “an American-

Swiss global nomad with a very European-influenced international background”38 notes that this

can be either a positive or negative factor in the TCK’s life. She herself prefers to maintain and

even celebrate her marginal status laying claim to it as a creatively integral part of her identity.

This, she says, is in contrast to those who find it difficult to move beyond what she calls an

“encapsulated marginality”39 which is defined by a sense of isolation which often drives the TCK

into the kind of desperate attempt to “fit in” which characterized our son’s behavior. Making

constructive use of marginality in this case means developing what Muneo Yoshikawa terms a

"dynamic in-between-ness"40 which . . .

. . . suggests that the constructive marginal is able to move easily and powerfully between
different cultural traditions, acting appropriately and feeling at home in each, and in doing so
simultaneously maintains an integrated, multi-cultural sense of self. Rather than the either/or
identity of encapsulated marginals, constructive marginals experience their movement between
cultures as both/and.41

Scaetti’s emphasis on the creative possibilities of the marginal or limnal experience of

TCKs underscores how those who belong to this “third culture” exhibit traits which can be

identified as either positive or negative or, in some cases, hold a potentiality for both. One of the

factors which influenced our decision to enter into full time cross-cultural missionary service

was surveying the material available at that time (1986) about TCKs. What was encouraging to

11
us was how many of the traits listed in this material were, at least in our eyes, positive. Since

then more research has come out which presents a more mixed picture. But the positives (at least

potential positives) continue to outweigh the negatives, particularly in this era when a globalized

identity is becoming a prized attribute.

Kathleen Finn Jordan gives the following list of characteristics which more or less

conform to the findings of others who have done research in the field even though she tends to

highlight the “negatives.”

• an externalized participant observer self combined with an internal covered or

buried self focusing the TCK on intrapersonal rather than interpersonal activity
• a sense of self of who one is not rather than who one is at the point of re-entry and
during early transition
• a lack of identification with one’s own ethnicity
• a strong base of academic skills combined with an initial deficiency in social
skills at the peer level
• a sense of elitism deriving from the ascribed status experienced as a result of
living in a sponsorship situation during the early developmental years
• a set of site-specific or role-specific formulas (applied on return and after), which
substitute for the self
• a sense of marginality (though it may be constructive), which confers a degree of
“other” status to be resolved as formulaic recipes for self become integrated
• a fully conceived sense of networks, relationships, and fictive kin worldwide that
serve as extended family
• a certain very strong dependence on, need for approval from, and identification
with (even after childhood years) parents who alone have shared their particular
transits
• psychological sensitivity to an internalized sense of otherness and a feeling of less
security (when out of the third culture setting) and, in the early re-entry years, less
optimism about life in general than their peers and
• issues of separation, grief and loss as a result of frequent transition, losing friends,
and leaving places in a mobility pattern that was not their own choice.42

Pollack and Van Reken make note of some of the same attributes with a stronger

emphasis on their dialectical nature. Each trait, in their estimation, holds creative potential,

allowing it to become either positive or negative, or sometimes dialectically both, thus


This would only be the case with those who fit the narrower categorization of TCKs.

12
underscoring how important it is for TCKs to understand what uniquely defines their “third

culture” profile. This set of characteristics is listed and discussed in the second part of Pollock

and Van Reken’s book, a section which they entitle “the TCK Profile.” Here is their list which

they present as “benefits versus challenges”:

• Expanded Worldview versus Confused Loyalties

• Three-Dimensional View of the World versus Painful View of Reality
• Cross-cultural Enrichment versus Ignorance of the Home Culture
• Cultural Chameleon: Adaptability versus Lack of True Cultural Balance
• Hidden Immigrants: Blending In versus Defining the Differences
• Prejudice: Less versus More
• Decisiveness: The Importance of Now versus the Delusion of Choice43
• Relation to Authority: Appreciative versus Mistrustful
• Arrogance: Real versus Perceived 44

In addition to this list, Pollack and Van Reken also include a section on the unique

practical skills of TCKs and two chapters devoted entirely to the issues of rootlessness,

restlessness and unresolved grief.45

Field Research

Deriving my questions from these characteristics I recently conducted a formal interview

with three ATCKs, one of whom was my daughter. This was done in the student center of

Moody Bible Institute in Chicago which is the alma mater of one of the three. All, as will be

seen below, not only spent a significant part of their formative years in a second culture (in one

case an entire childhood and adolescence) , but also had the privilege of being first participants

in, then counselors for, a missionary kid re-entry seminar,46 which is where they met. This gives

them the benefit of having experienced and thought through the issues related to being a TCK

both from a first and second person perspective. They not only lived it. They re-lived it

vicariously through the experiences of others.

13
 What is presented below is the near verbatim account of that interview followed by my

own reflections on what it indicates about attitudes, life experiences and perspectives which are

characteristic of this “third culture.”

________________________________

The Interview

Participants:

Lisa Crouch (27)

• Born in Nigeria to missionary parents who were employed by a para-church missionary

agency known as SIM (Serving in Mission) . Parents were also born in Nigeria.
• Attended Hillcrest School, an international academy catering to both missionary kids and
other international English speaking students.
• Took a year off after graduating from high school to work with YWAM (Youth with a
Mission) in Nigeria then moved to the States to attend Moody Bible Institute.
• Obtained her teaching degree at Moody which she is now utilizing as a fifth grade teacher
at a Christian school in urban Chicago. Now in her fifth year of teaching.
• Parents still make their residence in Nigeria.

Matt Clermont (27)

• Born in Evansville, Ind. Lived there until the age of ten.

• At age ten moved with his family to Paraguay where they lived for two years working
with a Southern Baptist missionary organization.
• Returned to the States for a year before returning with his family to another mission field,
this time Nigeria.
• Remained in Nigeria through high school attending the same school as Lisa.
• Returned to the States upon graduation from high school to attend Union University in
Jackson, Tennessee, where he obtained a degree in Youth Ministry.
• After graduation served for two years as a missionary to the Comoros Islands.
• Now resident in St. Louis, Missouri, where he does landscaping work and substitute
teaching.
• Parents continue to make their residence in Nigeria.

Jennifer Hubers (29)

• Born in Manama, Bahrain, three months before her parents returned to the States from a
short term mission assignment with the Reformed Church in America
• Lived in Cairo, Egypt for one year during her father’s seminary internship, age two-three.

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 • Moved at age eight with her parents to Salalah, Oman, where they served as missionaries
with the Reformed Church in America. Would move two more times over a period of ten
years to Muscat, Oman and Manama, Bahrain.
• Attended British school in Salalah, American-British Academy in Muscat, The American
School in Manama; all international private schools with no mission affiliation.
• Returned to the States upon graduation from high school to attend first a private college
in Oregon, then the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father
was pastor of a university church.
• Soon after graduation from the University of Michigan with a degree in psychology,
taught missionary kids in a remote location in Honduras, then worked as campus minister
at the church previously served by her father (who had now taken a new job with the
Reformed Church)
• Taught elementary school for three years in urban Houston.
• Obtained her master’s degree in International Educational Development from Sussex
University in Brighton, UK. (Sept 2006-Sept 2007)
• Now (November, 2007) preparing to leave for an eighteen month mission assignment in
Mozambique with a British-based para-church mission agency known as Oasis.

THE INTERVIEW:

Q: Pollock and Van Reken see the TCK experience as positive in terms of an expanded
worldview but also see a downside in terms of confused loyalties. How would you define
your own experience?

(Lisa) Confused loyalties? Yes, but not as much now. I was able to work through it. At the
time we returned I felt if I grew to like America I would somehow be disloyal to Nigeria. When
I came to terms with the fact that I could be loyal to both I came to be at peace with both.

(Matt) I certainly believe I have an expanded worldview. Confused loyalties? Can’t say I’ve
ever felt that, or at least can’t remember feeling that. I always felt I could be loyal to both. At
the same time I’m proud to be a citizen of the world. This sets me apart from most other people I
know.

(Jennifer) I was accused of being anti American when I first came back. I don’t think I ever
was, but I think people took what I said as being disloyal.

Some people are surprised to find out that I have good things to say about both places, which
means that I can be loyal to both.

Once I was comparing safety issues in Bahrain and the States. I said that I never feared for my
personal safety walking around the streets of Bahrain, but that in the States this is a problem.
Here you’re not concerned about political safety, which can be a problem in Bahrain, but
personal safety is an issue. The person I shared this with was surprised that I had good things to
say about both places.

15
This is the way it is with lots of things because I like things about all the places I’ve been. I’m
never going to say that one place is better than the other.

At the same time I can relate to what Lisa said as I had to work through confused loyalties as
well. At one point I felt if I liked the US that meant Bahrain wasn’t home anymore. Then I
came to realize that it’s OK to like both places.

Q: Do you see any difference between the way you watch the news versus your non-
globalized friends?

(Jennifer) Yes. I feel like I’m cynical about everything I hear. “Wait a minute they’re not
getting the full picture here.” I don’t feel they cover enough of what’s going on in the world.

(Lisa) I feel like I need to watch the news more than I do. I’m often not interested partly
because its all about America. Rarely does the news give us more than a glimpse of what’s
happening in the rest of the world. Or I get upset when I do hear something about Nigeria
because the only thing I ever hear is negative. It upsets me because that’s the only picture
Americans are getting of the country I love!

I once heard a news reporter say about Barak Obama: “Here is a man whose native country is
Africa.” I really lost it when I heard that!

(Matt) I don’t watch the news that much. I get really frustrated with the ignorance of the people
bringing the news. Also, having a experience overseas makes me understand how bad the
negative stuff is. I don’t like hearing about it so much.

Q: If someone asks you who you are in terms of your citizenship is your most honest
answer: “American” or “a citizen of the world?” Why?

(Lisa) My first thought is: “Is this person really interested?” If so I’ll give them the long answer.
If not they get the short answer which is to tell them what I think they want to hear.

I actually don’t know how to answer this question.

(Jennifer) Can it be half way between the two? I’m not a citizen of the world. I’m clearly an
American, and then some.

(Matt) I’m an American plus.

Q: Global Nomads are sometimes called cultural chameleons. Is that a good description of
your own sense of self? If so how does that affect your ability to “fit in” or not “fit in” in
the place you currently call “home?”

16
(Matt) I like that description because I feel like I can move in and out of cultures. I really enjoy
being able to fit in with different crowds. I like this description. I enjoy having common ground
with other people. My international experience allows me to relate to a lot of different kinds of
people.

I wonder if it’s a matter of “belonging” – when I know something about them I feel like I
“belong.”

(Lisa) I don’t know that I agree. I don’t like the image. I don’t like the idea of blending in. I
like the idea of being true to myself. I like it in the sense that I think because of our background
we can relate to all kinds of people, but I don’t like the picture of the chameleon. I can relate to
others, but I don’t really change.

(Jennifer) I agree with Lisa. It’s not that I’m changing. If I’ve got all these experiences in me
they’re not all going to come out of me at that moment. It’s a matter of what’s going to shine
more when I’m with different people.

This isn’t entirely positive. I feel like I can’t fully settle down anywhere. I can’t develop
intimate relationships. Problem is – if I’m in one place – no matter where I am I’m always going
to be from somewhere else. I’m always going to be Jen from this other place.

Q: Do you feel like you are a “hidden immigrant” in America? or does it puzzle you to even
try and figure out what that means?

(Jennifer) I don’t think this is fair. We still have a “leg up” on immigrants. We know the system
somewhat. . . .

(Lisa) I understand the term, but I wouldn’t embrace the term.

(Jennifer) When I first came back I would describe myself as a “hidden international student.”

(Matt) We were pretty well adjusted.

(Lisa) I think my parents did good job of helping us establish our identity in Christ. Because of
this I didn’t struggle as much with identity issues. Also spending a year out after high school
(gap year) helped me figure out who I was, so identity issues were not as bad.

(Jennifer) Because our sense of identity was in Christ then these other identities weren’t as
important.

(Matt) If I hadn’t been a Christian I would have had more problems with this.

Q: Would you characterize yourself as less or more prejudiced than your non-globalized
friends? Think particularly of the kind of people who might have served as common
laborers or servants in your host country?

17
(Matt) Less. I’ve come to recognize that this (being prejudiced) is part of American life. It
doesn’t bother me too much because it’s common. I feel like I’m definitely less prejudiced.

(Lisa) I don’t know how to put it. One thing I find hard. I find it hard to explain to people in
the States that we had house help or a driver. I don’t even know how to describe it to Americans.
These were friends. They were family to us. We had a Nigerian woman who served as our
nanny as both parents worked at the school.

(Jennifer) I think it’s less. I think it has more to do with my parents’ attitudes. I think being in
Bahrain there was danger of looking down on Indians. But I think because we were working
with Indians in the church I’m less prejudiced.

Q: Pollack and Van Reken suggest that Global Nomads have a hard time making up their
minds, especially when that choice involves a significant time commitment “because they
know a new and more desirable possibility may always appear.” Does that describe you?

(Matt) Sure. Making large decisions like this is definitely harder for me than for most people.
I’m thinking that’s going to tie me down for a whole year.

(Lisa) I think that I’m rather unique in this that I somehow crave commitment or being settled in
one place. Maybe its because of living in lots of different places. When I came to Chicago I
lived in same room for four years. I didn’t even want to move out of my room. Then I didn’t
want to leave the city. My bigger fear is that I’ll grow too comfortable here and I won’t want to
move.

(Jennifer) I agree it’s hard to make decisions. I agree with Matt. Although I now crave
commitment and being in one place. I would like nothing more than buying a little house in
Houston unpacking my things and staying in one place.

Q: Pollack tells of an ATCK who came up to him after a seminar and said: “There’s one
issue you failed to talk about tonight and it’s the very thing that nearly ruined my life. It
was my arrogance.”

Is this something with which you struggle? How about the perception of arrogance –
people thinking that you are arrogant even when you don’t think so?

(Jennifer) I think I’ve struggled with being prejudiced against mono-cultured Americans. Even
though I never want to show it I think I’m better because I’ve had these experiences that no one
else has had. But then I think of how much I have to learn from them.

(Matt) I can relate to this. There is a fine line between being proud of your experience and
being arrogant about it. Sometimes there’s a perception of arrogance even though I’m not. I’m

18
just trying to tell my story. Sometimes people hear arrogance even when it’s not being
expressed.

(Lisa) It’s so different doing this now from doing this straight from Nigeria.

I definitely agree that there can be an issue with arrogance. But it’s like a kid that’s gifted. We
didn’t ask to grow up in another country. When you know more than someone else how to
communicate how do you do it without acting like you know more? I really try hard to be
someone who asks good questions of others – what can I learn? I come to know that there’s so
much I need to learn. I remember meeting a girl from a small town in Ohio and I would just ask
her questions about what it was like to grow up here. She said: “It was just normal.” I would
ask: “What’s it like to run after the ice cream man or have a dryer in your house?” She was
happy that I cared enough to ask.

Who are you most comfortable with?

(Matt) When we get together with other TCKs from Nigeria – there is a freedom there.

It’s almost as though we’re a part of miniature cultures that we adjust ourselves to.

Q: Do you see yourself as a migrating bird or a domesticated cat? Do you yearn to travel
or stay in one place?

(Lisa) I would be more the domesticated cat than a migratory bird. But I’m not sold on being
here for the rest of my life. I believed I would be here get my teaching degree, get some good
experience for a couple of years and now I’m in year five. But I still have a desire to go
overseas if that’s where God leads me. Right now I feel my mission field is right here.

I didn’t want to be the missionary who moved to a lot of places. I want to say: “OK – this is
where I want to spend my life.” I never had a desire that I had to go back to Nigeria.

I don’t like airports. I was the oldest so they left me here at Moody. I knew that it was
necessary, but it was just hard. “It’s harder to be left than to leave.”

(Matt) I do not see myself in one place for the rest of my life. There is deep inside me a longing
to have some kind of stability. Yet I am a migrating bird.

I see going back overseas as the most likely option, just not right now.

(Jennifer) This is an “age” thing. Now we’re staring to think about having families. Before we
wanted to travel now we want to settle down.

Q: Do you have a lot of friends or just a few friends who are very close, or simply a lot of
acquaintances? What kinds of friendships do you value most?

19
(Matt) A lot of friends, a lot of acquaintances. After looking at different situations – most
people don’t even have one friend. I have friends I can really be open with. My closest friends
are fellow expats. Several of them definitely fit into same category as I do. But not all of them.

(Lisa) Probably not as many. I feel extremely close to my family. But apart from that I don’t
have a lot of other close friends. Sometimes I feel like I’ve kept friends at arms length because
I’m very close to my family. But I also haven’t kept up with people over the years.

(Jennifer) I have a lot of friends, but my closest friends are mono-cultural.

Q: Tell me what you think of this poem, how it relates to your own experience:

There was no funeral.

No flowers.
No ceremony.
No one had died.
No weeping or wailing.
Just in my heart.
I can’t . . .
But I did anyway,
and nobody knew I couldn’t.
I don’t want to . . .
But nobody else said they didn’t.
So I put down my panic
and picked up my luggage
and got on the plane.
There was no funeral.

- “Mock Funeral” by Alex Graham Jones47

(Matt) Is this supposed to bring up painful memories? It was so long ago.

Everyone left right after graduation but we stayed in Jos (Nigeria) a month later. I felt really
empty.

(Lisa) Everyone was going off to the States or Europe for college and I began doubting why I
was taking a year off. I felt like my life was over. I was really struggling. I remember I was
sitting on our swing outside my and my mom came out and sat with me for a bit. She said she
had to go to a meeting but she realized how much I was struggling and said she would stay. I’ll
always remember that. I was fine when I finally left a year later.

(Jennifer) We left right after graduation, like a week after. And my whole family left. At that
point I was really angry with my parents because I didn’t understand why they were leaving. I

20
had to leave for college, but they were choosing to leave. My friends would be back at
Christmas but I wouldn’t. And we were leaving so early.

I remember the day we left, as we were driving away I looked at everything out the window
knowing it would be the last time I’d ever see any of it.

______________________________________

Some Observations

All three of the participants in this interview note that much has changed for them since

returning to the States, meaning that the responses they were giving in this interview at times

meant dredging up old memories rather than reflecting on how they currently felt (thus Matt’s

response to the poem: “Is this supposed to bring up painful memories? It was so long ago.”).

Clearly all have acculturated themselves to the country which was home to their parents in a way

that it was never home to them. They have done so in different, mostly constructive ways. Yet

there remains a discernable pattern of response which defines a “third culture” identity which

they continue to carry with them.

A more comprehensive survey of seven hundred ATCKs recently undertaken by John

Useem and Ruth Hill Useem, Ann Baker Cottrell of San Diego University, and Kathleen A. Finn

Jordan, a counselor in Washington, D.C., has shown that while all ATCKs adapt to their first

culture in ways unique to their personalities, family circumstances and developmental context,

none can say that they ever fully adapt themselves in a way that would allow them to claim full

enculturation.

The answer to the question of how long it takes them to adjust to American life is: they
never adjust. They adapt, they find niches, they take risks, they fail and pick themselves
up again. They succeed in jobs they have created to fit their particular talents, they
locate friends with whom they can share some of their interests, but they resist being
encapsulated. Their camouflaged exteriors and understated ways of presenting
themselves hide the rich inner lives, remarkable talents, and often strongly held

21
 contradictory opinions on the world at large and the world at hand.48

This is seen in different ways in the responses given by these three young adults. All

speak of being at peace with their “in-between” loyalties, feeling that it isn’t necessary for them

to choose one culture over another. This immediately sets them apart from mono-cultural

Americans who would have difficulty understanding how anyone can divide their loyalties in

this way. The story Jennifer tells of her friend’s astonishment at her ability to speak with equal

appreciation for both Bahraini and American cultures underscores this, particularly given the

current “clash of civilization” perspectives which inform many Americans’ understanding of

Arab culture. These are not the “confused loyalties” that all struggled with upon their first

arrival in the States, but it is a dual loyalty that only someone who has lived between cultures can

integrate as part of their self identity.

Their unique “third culture” identity comes out perhaps even more strongly in what they

say about their perspective on the news. “Wait a minute,” says Jennifer. “They’re not getting the

full picture here!” Lisa, who has apparently (and perhaps surprisingly given the length of time

she spent in Nigeria) adjusted herself most comfortably to a “normal” American life, shows the

same passion about the news, particularly when the newscasters exhibit ignorance about the

country she loves. “It upsets me because that’s the only picture Americans are getting of the

country I love!” Matt doesn’t watch the news much, yet reacts in much the same way to what he

calls “the ignorance of the people bringing the news.” He also finds it difficult to watch because

the people who are subjects of these news reports are more real to him than they would be to a

mono-cultural American who has not experienced the life being portrayed in the often violent

scenes that are given sensational coverage by the popular press.

22
 Lisa’s response to the question about citizenship gives another insight into how “third

culture” identity exhibits itself, seen here in her frustration with people who are apparently

uninterested in knowing who she really is: “My first thought is: “Is this person really

interested?”, she says, which means that there is an essential part of her biography which remains

hidden to all but a select few. With Jennifer and Matt, who nodded their agreement to this, it is

the “plus” part of the equation which they would in most cases keep to themselves. Our son has

indicated a similar tendency to keep his international upbringing to himself. “Nobody is

interested,” he has told us. “Why should I talk about it?”

On the plus side all express in one way or another their appreciation for the ease with

which they move “in and out of cultures” (to use Matt’s phrase). Jennifer speaks of having “all

these experiences in me” that allow her to “shine” in different situations depending on the people

she is with. This suggests adaptability, not necessarily to American culture, but certainly to the

diversity that more and more defines what America is about. This gives them a leg up on others

who may find that same diversity threatening. Matt’s comment about prejudice underscores this,

as, while he has learned to adjust himself to its ubiquitous presence in the American psyche, he

is at the same time appreciatively cognizant of the fact that his international upbringing has made

him “less prejudiced.”

These are positive elements of the “third culture” identity. At the same time Jennifer is

quick to point out that the “chameleon-like” nature of her globalized self “isn’t entirely positive,”

as it means that she doesn’t really belong anywhere. “[N]o matter where I am, I’m always going

to be from somewhere else. I’m always going to be Jen from this other place.”

The question about being a “hidden immigrant” in America brought out one of the most

interesting responses, one which will help move us into the next section of the paper. While all

23
three of the participants in this interview clearly belong to the larger ATCK community, the fact

that all three are also actively committed to the faith with which they were raised, in this case an

evangelical Protestant Christian faith, slots them into a sub-culture which possesses important

spiritual resources that others in the larger culture do not necessarily have. In this case while

their adjustment to American culture involved all the issues common to ATCKs, their “identity

in Christ,” as Jennifer puts it, made that adjustment easier. Lisa is quite clear about this,

attributing the relatively easy time she had making the adjustment to American culture (which

came across not only in her answers, but in the almost preternaturally calm demeanor she

exhibited throughout this interview) to her Christian faith. Here was a larger trans-national

identity she could carry with her in the difficult move away from her family and home in

Nigeria, an identity which allowed her to find a supportive home in the American Church among

people who shared her identity in Christ even though their identity as mono-cultural Americans

was quite different from hers. Jennifer and Matt’s responses indicate their agreement as to how

important this resource was to them, as well. “If I hadn’t been a Christian,” says Matt, “I would

have had more problems with this.”

A Theology of Limnality?

When I was pastor of the English Language Congregation of the National Evangelical

Church in Bahrain which counted among its membership a majority south Indian population

along with Filipinos, Ghanaians, South Africans, Australians, Brits, Lebanese, Americans and

various and sundry other nationalities, I felt compelled to preach a sermon series on “the

Expatriate Message of the Bible,” not knowing at the time I started it how much material I would

find. A year later when the series was still in full force several British members of my

24
congregation wondered out loud whether or not I thought the entire Bible was written for

expatriates. The answer, I believe, is a qualified “yes,” as confirmed by the Cuban-American

theologian, Francisco Garcia-Treto, who claims that the Hebrew Bible, at least, is “a set of books

largely written by exiles and for exiles. . .” 49

This is the biblical theme which I believe best relates to the global nomadic experience –

Israel in exile, God’s people as sojourners first in and then wandering at the borders of the

Promised Land, then in a diasporic existence in Babylon, then again as a new community of faith

pledged to follow a Man with a uniquely hyphenated identity who had “no place to lay his head.”

(Matthew 8: 20). More often than not in the biblical story God’s people find their identity

shaped and defined by that limnal space between promise and fulfillment where home is

somewhere other than where they are at the moment. Matt’s deep longing “to have some kind of

stability” even though his identity was better defined by the image of a migratory bird describes

well what this is about. It’s about finding our identity as God’s people in a sojourner’s longing

for a place that always lies just outside her grasp. It is best defined by a theology of limnal

space.

Unfortunately this exilic theme has rarely been given the emphasis it deserves in the more

settled churches of Christendom or its contemporary vestiges. Daniel Smith-Christopher

reminds us of this in two creatively critical works on the biblical theme of exile: The Religion of

the Landless and A Biblical Theology of Exile. Here he postulates the exile as a vitally creative

time in Israel’s life, noting that for too long the church has held up the Davidic state as our

“success” model, when, in fact, Israel’s diasporic existence is a much better determinant of our

identity in Christ.

My conviction is that Christian study of subcultural experiences is critical to the task of

being the church – these diasporas and their exilic members can become our teachers of

25
 the diasporic, minority strategies that the church must learn if it is to survive in exile. It
is time, in short, to end the colonization of Christian biblical theology by the Davidic
state with its nostalgia for power and see a future of “critical localism” or “creative
diasporic existence” in Babylon. Tobit, not David, is our saint for the third millennium.50

Smith-Christopher takes his lead from the biblical theologian who has been our most

astute observer of and expounder on the exilic theme of scripture as a defining motif for an

American church living in the ruins of Christendom, the Old Testament scholar, Dr. Walter

Brueggemann. Brueggemann speaks of an identity crisis in the American church, as well as

American society in general, which picks up on some of the same themes we have noted in our

examination of the global nomad’s identity, particularly those themes related to an exile’s acute

feelings of marginality.

This identity crisis is felt in two ways, says Brueggemann, the first by what he calls

“reflective” Christians, the second by Americans in general who are watching older patterns of

hegemonic dominance slip away. The first he calls a “Christian exile in a secular culture,” the

second a “cultural exile with the loss of conventional hegemony.”51 Here is how he defines the

first:

On the one hand, I suggest an evangelical dimension to exile in our social context. That
is, serious, reflective Christians find themselves increasingly at odds with the dominant
values of consumer capitalism and its supportive military patriotism; there is no easy
or obvious way to hold together core faith claims and the social realities around us.
Reflective Christians are increasingly “resident aliens.52

The second draws on the same exilic theme in a quite different, yet no less profoundly

displacing way:

On the other hand, I suggest a cultural dimension to exile that is more “American” than
Christian, but no less germane to the pastoral task. The “homeland” in which all of us
have grown up has been defined and dominated by white, male, Western assumptions
which were, at the same time, imposed and also willingly embraced. Exile comes as
those values and modes of authority are being effectively and progressively diminished.
That diminishment is a source of deep displacement for many, even though for others
who are not male and white, it is a moment of emancipation. . . . [W]e are now required

26
 to live in a new situation that for many feels like less than “home.” In such a context,
folk need pastoral help in relinquishing a “home” that is gone, and in entering a new
“dangerous” place that we sense as deeply alien.53

What is most striking here is his use of the language of marginalization and alienation

which is the kind of language often utilized by global nomads to describe their feelings of

rootlessness in what should be their own culture. Here is one of these voices echoing

Brueggemann’s theme of exilic displacement:

I may be a citizen of the USA but I’ll never be an American at heart. I’ll never feel
comfortable with the normal American lifestyle, goals, assumptions, attitudes, even
normal American success. I may never again be a true Nigerian, but my heart is
more there than here.54

What this suggests is that American global nomads (if not others) may have more in

common with their mono-cultural neighbors than they realize. It also suggests that the need for

an inculturated Gospel may lead global nomads and “reflective Christians” down the same path.

Both need to recover the exilic theme of scripture.

Brueggemann prefers to use the language of metaphor to describe how our story might

intersect and draw inspiration from the exilic themes of scripture. This is important to move us

beyond questionable attempts to compare our situation directly to that of diasporic Israel. It is

the metaphor of exile more than the actual experience of exile which is most determinant of our

own situation.

The usefulness of a metaphor for rereading our own context is that it is not claimed
to be a one-on-one match to “reality,” as though the metaphor of exile actually
describes our situation. Rather a metaphor proceeds by having only an odd, playful,
and ill-fitting match to its reality, the purpose of which is to illuminate and evoke
dimensions of reality which will otherwise go unnoticed and therefore un-experienced.55

It is this metaphor of exile that I find most helpful in linking the biblical message to the

“third culture” experience.

27
 The metaphor of exile allows the global nomad to hear the heart cry of the Hebrews on

their way to a diasporic existence in Babylon as a resonant song of their own deeply felt sense of

loss when they are forced to leave behind the land or lands they have called “home” to find a

new “home” in a place which is no home to them.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. . .

How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

Psalm 137: 1, 4-6 (NIV)

The metaphor of exile also allows the global nomad to draw strength and inspiration from

the story of Abraham who left his home in Harran to find a home among strangers in a strange

land buoyed up by nothing more than a trusting faith in God who always provides.

The metaphor of exile can also allow the global nomad to hear his own more expansive

sense of God’s purposes echoed in the voice of the great exilic prophet whose experience of exile

became for him a time of “constructive marginalization.”

Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely
exclude me from his people.”
And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”

. . . for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Isaiah 56: 3, 7

The metaphor of exile is also helpful in drawing out elements in the story of Jesus and the

first church which others unfamiliar with the exilic experience might disregard or pass over. The

kenotic movement of the Logos, rooted in God, taking on flesh, having no place to lay his head

in a sojourn among people who often failed to recognize his true God-determined nature has an

immediate resonance with global nomads on several different levels. That Christians are called

28
through faith in Christ to develop a similar lifestyle, living a sojourner’s existence of being in but

not of the world, validates what is most unique about the global nomad’s existence. In this case

the global nomad’s journey itself becomes emblematic of how it is Christ wishes us to live.

It isn’t difficult to find resonant exilic themes for global nomads in the scriptures whether

taken metaphorically or literally. This is particularly true with the most compelling biblical

discourse, (which Brueggemann insightfully and profoundly develops in his classic, The Land 56)

which speaks of God promising a Place to those who follow the nomadic Christ, receiving it by

grace as promise rather than grasping it as a birthright, a promise best received by those who

live creatively in a limnal space (“what was, is no longer, and what will be, is not yet”). This

may be the most compelling part of the biblical narrative for the global nomad – the gracious

promise of Place. That the God who makes this offer does so in the guise of a Sojourner,

homeless for those who are homeless, marginalized for those who are marginalized, speaks even

more powerfully to those who embrace it from within their own sojourner’s existence. Clearly

the Gospel of grace in Jesus Christ is a gospel for and metaphorically about global nomads.

John Hubers

November 27, 2007

END NOTES
1
The Notebooks of Simone Weil, trans. by Arthur Wills, (New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons, 1956).
2
Pico Iyer, The Global Soul: Jetlag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home (New York: Alfred R. Knopf,
2000).
3
Ibid., p. 23.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Ruth Useem, “Third Culture Kids: Focus of Major Study” from the International Schools Services website:
http://www.iss.edu/pages/kids.html. (no page numbers given).
7
Kathleen M. Dewalt and Billie R. Dewalt, Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers (New York:
AltaMira Press, 2002), p. 1.
8
Ibid., p. 1.
9
Steven B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2007), p. 11.

29
10
Useem.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken, Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds
(Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2001)
14
Ibid., p. xv.
15
Ibid.
16
Debbie Carlson, “Being a Global Nomad: the Pros and Cons” from the www.worldweave.com website.
Link: http://www.worldweave.com/procon.htm#anchor5220878.
17
Anora Egan, “Breath Roots,” in Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global, edited by Faith
Eidse and Nina Sichel (Boston: Intercultural Press, 2004), p. 217-218.
18
Pollock and Van Reken, p. 19.
19
Ibid., 21.
20
Robert Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll: Orbis Books,
1997), p. 47.
21
Ibid., p. 47-49.
22
Charles Kraft, Anthropology for Christian Witness (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2006), p. 38.
23
Pollack and Van Reken, p. 33.
24
Ulrike Schuerkens, ed. Global Forces and Local Life-Worlds. London: Sage Publications, Ltd., 2004.
25
Ibid., p. 15.
26
Ibid., p. 53.
27
Ruth Van Reken and Paulette Bethel, “Third Culture Kids: Prototypes for Understanding Other Cross-Cultural
Kids,” Intercultural Management Quarterly online magazine, Fall, 2005. Link:
http://www.imi.american.edu/VanReken_abstract.htm
28
Iyer, p. 19.
29
Van Reken and Bethel, p. 3.
30
Ibid.
31
Janet Bennet, “Cultural Marginality: Identity Issues in Intercultural Training.” in M. Paige, ed. Education for
the Intercultural Experience (Yarmouth: Intercultural Press, 1993). (quoted in Van Reken and Bethel, p. 3)
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., p. 9.
35
Barbara F. Schaetti and Sheil J. Ramsey, “The Global Nomad Experience” from the EscapeArtist website,
October, 2006. Link: www.escapeartist.com/efam/85/global_nomad.html. (no page numbers)
36
Ibid.
37
Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, “Diasporic Reading of a Diasporic Text: Identity Politics and Race Relations and the
Book of Esther,” in Interpreting Beyond Borders, ed. by Fernando F. Segovia (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield
Academic Press, 2000), p. 167.
38
Barbara F. Schaetti, “Phoenix Rising: A Question of Cultural Identity” from the webpage of Transition Dynamics
which describes itself as “A Consultancy Serving the International Expatraite and Repatriate Community”.
Link: http://www.transition-dynamics.com/phoenix.html (no page numbers)
39
Ibid.
40
Quoted and noted in Schaetti’s article.
41
Ibid.
42
Kathleen A. Finn Jordan, “Identity Formation and the Adult Third Culture Kid,” in Military Brats and Other
Global Nomads: Growing Up in Organization Families, ed. by Morten G. Ender (Westport, CT: Praeger
Publishers, 2002), p. 213.
43
The “Delusion of Choice” refers to the fact that TCKs have difficulty making up their minds, particularly when
their choices involve a significant commitment of time. Both our children exhibit these traits which Pollack and
Van Reken put down to the fact that many TCKs always had the possibility of a move hanging over their heads.
The sense of instability in their lives engenders a reluctance to commit themselves to anything for long periods of
time. Interestingly, this is also a trait that was recognizable among most all the students who were members of
our mainly congregation in Ann Arbor. It could in this sense be seen as a trait of this generation of
Americans in general.
44
See chapters five and six in Pollack and Van Reken.

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45
See chapters seven through eleven.
46
This is run on a yearly basis as a two week residential camp by an organization called Barnabas International.
Website link: http://www.barnabas.org/
47
Pollack and Van Reken, p. 165.
48
“Third Culture Kids: Focus of a Major Study” (part two of four) - http://www.iss.edu/pages/kids.html.
49
Francisco Garcia-Treto, “Hyphenating Joseph: A View of Genesis 39-41 from the Cuban Diaspora,” in
Interpreting Beyond Borders, ed. by Fernando F. Segovia (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press,
2000), p. 134.
50
Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2002), p. 198.
51
Walter Brueggemann, Cadences of Home: Preaching Among the Exiles (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1997), p. 2.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54
Jordan, p. 225.
55
Brueggemann, p. 1.
56
Walter Brueggemann, The Land (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).
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Ackroyd, Peter. Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century B.C. Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1968.

Anderson, Wanni W. and Lee, Robert G., eds. Displacements and Diasporas: Asians in the Americas. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005.

Bevans, Steven B. Models of Contextual Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2007.

Brueggemann, Walter. Cadences of Home: Preaching Among the Exiles.(Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1997.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Land. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977.

Carling, Alan, ed. Globalization and Identity: Development and Integration in a Changing World. London: I.B.
Tauris, 2006.

Carlson, Debbie. “Being a Global Nomad: the Pros and Cons” from the www.worldweave.com website.
Link: http://www.worldweave.com/procon.htm#anchor5220878.

Dewalt, Kathleen M. and Dewalt, Billie R. Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers.New York:
AltaMira Press, 2002.

Eidse, Faith and Sichel, Nina, eds. Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing Up Global. Boston: Intercultural
Press, 2004.

Ender, Morten G. Military Brats and Other Global Nomads: Growing Up in Organization Families. Westport,
CT: Praeger Publishers, 2002.

Grabbe, Lester L. ed. Leading Captivity Captive: “The Exile” as History and Ideology. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1998.

Iyer, Pico. The Global Soul: Jetlag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home. New York: Alfred R. Knopf,
2000.

Kraft, Charles. Anthropology for Christian Witness. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2006.

Levitt, Peggy. The Transitional Villagers. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.

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Pollock, David C. and Van Reken, Ruth E. Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds
Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2001.

Schaetti, Barbara F. “Phoenix Rising: A Question of Cultural Identity” from the webpage of Transition Dynamics
which describes itself as “A Consultancy Serving the International Expatraite and Repatriate Community.”.
Link: http://www.transition-dynamics.com/phoenix.html

Schreiter, Robert J. Constructing Local Theologies. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993.

Schreiter, Robert. The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local .Maryknoll: Orbis Books,
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Segovia, Fernando F. Interpreting Beyond Borders. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press,
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Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. A Biblical Theology of Exile. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2002.
Smith, Daniel L. The Religion of the Landless. Bloomington, IN: Meyer-Stone Books, 1989.

Tournier, Paul. A Place for You. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1966.

Useem, Ruth. “Third Culture Kids: Focus of Major Study” (four articles by various authors) from the International
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Van Reken, Ruth and Bethel, Paulette. “Third Culture Kids: Prototypes for Understanding Other Cross-Cultural
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