A Missionary TCKs Outlook
Being an MK…Feeling knowledgeable, yet ignorant
Well traveled, but lost
Satisfied, but searching
Where do I belong?
Adjusting…
Takes patience and time,
Recognizing insecurities,
Identifying sadness,
Who will understand me?
Growing up…
Feeling part of two worlds,
Invested in my current one,
Seeing little of my formative one,
What heritage can I claim?
Being God’s child…
Accepted for myself,
Belonging where I am,
Focusing forward,
Glancing backwards,
Looking to Him for understanding.
Resting in God’s love.
Kristina J. Adams
I am an MK, who grew up in Austria, Turkey and Germany. I then spent all of high school in suburbs of Chicago, IL. After high school, I attended a year of school at Bodenseehof Bible School in southern Germany, back to Chicago for a year in junior college, and finally graduated in 1995 from Indiana Wesleyan University with an education degree. Married since 1996, my husband, Ryan, is a police officer, I teach exploratory German and Spanish at the middle school level, and we have two children, a girl (8) and a boy (2). I started writing for publication in 2003, when I was published in Chicken Soup for the Christian Teenage Soul (He Sees). Recently, I published an article in Among Worlds magazine (TCK publication) in September 2007 and will have another in December of this year. I also recently won a prize (1 of 25, nationally)for a photograph of my children having fun choosing milk (they were blowing bubbles). I won five chef prepared meals and a cookbook from the Got Milk? campaign...I was/am pretty excited about this, since it just happened. Glad to see all these websites/groups popping up for TCKs...cool for those of us "older" TCKs who grew up with snail mail!Related Posts
5 Comments to “A Missionary TCKs Outlook”
November 16th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
That pretty well describes the MK experience. Where did you grow up?
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November 16th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Well writen
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November 17th, 2007 at 9:01 am
I grew up in Austria (8 yrs-6 mos through 3rd grade), Turkey (1/2 of 5th, 6th and 7th grades), Germany (8th grade, Black Forest Academy), and all of high school in Chicago suburbs. High school was a pretty crazy, what am I kind of a time, since I wasn’t “officially” an MK anymore.
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November 17th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Once an MK, always an MK. My first couple of years in the States, I had kind of a funny “what am I” sort of time, too. I had always identified with being a foreigner, and now all of a sudden I wasn’t technically a foreigner and yet I felt more foreign than I ever had before! It was weird. What kind of mission work did your parents do?
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February 2nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hi Kristina, I just read your poem and could really identify! it was well written. How are things going now? It was hard giving up “MK” status because we came to a place where we were just one of the crowd and that was tough because people didn’t realise we needed help getting into this new culture (America). Just because we spoke English didn’t mean we fit in
Anyway, thanks for sharing! At least there are others who understand, so that at least comforts me!
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