As a child and teen, I wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. Like most TCKs, I traveled a lot, and airports and airplanes fascinated me! I was raised in Bali, Indonesia. At one end of the runway of Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport was a public road. I remember my dad parking the car at the side of that road. Stepping outside the car, I watched as jets passed directly over us just moments before touching down on the runway. It felt like I could reach up and touch the massive fuselage underbelly as these planes swooped down from the sky, engines roaring. Later in my adult life, I realized that I didn’t really want to be a pilot. But international travel still brings a surge of excitement and anticipation. I sense a common “global citizen” bond when I am with fellow international travelers in the transit terminals of major hub city airports—Changi, Dubai, Tokyo, Incheon, Taiwan Taoyuan, Heathrow, Narita.

TCKs, especially those who have continued to live and work internationally in their adult life, know the exhilaration of international travel and adventure. But many express a desire as well to be rooted and to settle. On a public Facebook group that I followed several years ago, one adult TCK asked, “When do you stop moving? As I’ve grown older, and had my own kids, I realize I’ve become less and less interested in moving. Almost scared about it. But I get the impression from some TCK posts that to be a TCK means you can never settle. Is that most people’s experience as they get older?”

To Settle or Not to Settle?

Intense feelings arise for TCKs in response to the question, “To settle or not to settle?” TCK researcher and author Tanya Crossman identifies three “core questions” that adult TCKs ask. These questions “shape what they choose to pursue in life” and help to “determine their priorities.” They are:

    •    “Move around or settle down?” (where to go or where to live)
    •    “Place or Person?” (where to find home, in a place or in certain relationships)
    •    “Location or Vocation?” (whether to prioritize location or job/vocation)[1]

If you are an adult TCK, what feelings surface when you hear the words “settling down?” That you will miss out on adventure or the exciting tasks of a global life and calling? That you’ll be tied down and stuck in a boring, monochrome life? Or are positive feelings evoked—that you’ll start to build a foundation for future stability, with family or a community that you hope to call home? Before reading further, pause for a moment and articulate what you are feeling.

“Settling down” was not on the menu for me as a missionary kid. I was very much aware of the language of being sent. My parents were sent from the US, their passport country, to help complete a task, to fulfill a commission—a Great Commission. They worked for decades on the Hindu-majority island of Bali, Indonesia. My father wrote an autobiography entitled The Battle for Bali.[2]

He saw his missionary life as a spiritual battle. This was a dominant metaphor for him in his journey of faith and mission. It beckoned him to endure hardship, to pioneer, and to persevere in obedience to God, even at the cost of giving up family and home, the beauty of leaves dropping in the Fall, and back-home culinary delights like mashed potatoes and gravy.[3]

The call to be a cross-cultural “sent-one” became my adult calling too. I followed in the footsteps of my parents. My wife and I lived and served in Indonesia for 26 years. We saw people’s lives being changed. Most profoundly for me, my life was changed and transformed!

A Broader Framework for God’s Mission: Toward Shalom

But family commitments and changing seasons of life brought us to live in the US in 2016. In this season of my life, I now see in the Scriptures the commitment to being a “sent one” set within a broader framework for God’s mission. The Scriptures speak of “shalom,” a term that captures the full breadth of the heart and the intention of God. Shalom includes personal peace and salvation, but it also encompasses the peace and welfare of society, of interpersonal and intergenerational relationships, of relationships among diverse populations, of peoples and nations, and of the land.

“Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven” (Ps 85:9-13).

“Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture” (Ps 37:3).[4]

An Invitation for Adult TCKs, Cross-cultural Workers, and Mission Leaders

Today, among my different roles, I serve as a life coach and a spiritual formation coach for cross-cultural mission workers and for adult TCKs. If you are an adult TCK, still unsure about your response to the question of “settling down,” I invite you to consider what a “toward shalom” life might look like. God loves the whole world with a strong and eternal love, and he loves you and your family with that same love too! Canopied by that love, cultivate a regular practice of gratitude. Gratitude awakens us to the presence of God. It grows an interior freedom that allows us to be more fully present and alive wherever and with whomever we may be[5].

Release the narrative that you are so “TCK unique” that no one will understand you and that you have no roots. Instead, commit time and money regularly to be with family and trusted friends who know you, love you, and won’t judge you. Stay close especially to those who provide safe spaces to grow your self-awareness, your experience of the love of God, and your practices for discernment.

If you are a cross-cultural worker (and possibly the parent of TCKs!), I invite you to consider what the call to shalom might mean for you over a whole lifetime of receiving and sharing God’s love. There may be seasons of being mobile and global, immersed cross-culturally in communities and relationships away from extended family and home. Live into those seasons fully, boldly, creatively, and compassionately. Yet, remember that in the “bottom line” of Genesis 12:2-3 (God’s promise to bless all the families or kinship groups)[6] of the earth, are your family and extended family and clan too! Where and in what seasons might God be beckoning you to call a place home for your family? How might that home be a place of belonging for your family while also offering hospitality and welcome to others?

And if you are a mission leader, be attentive to the changing longings and commitments of mission workers in different seasons. Love them well. Steward the precious resource that is the person in mission. We know the importance in mission settings of not “extracting” new Jesus followers from their families and social networks. Extend that “no extraction” commitment to the mission worker. Support them well as they wrestle with seemingly competing commitments to cross-cultural mission and to family, to going and to settling in a place that they can call home, and from where they can extend welcome and hospitality. Make room for varied life trajectories and timelines. God will guide.