Supporting our TCKs

 

A friend brought an article to my attention today written by Rebecca Hopkins for Christianity Today. It's about MKs - missionary kids, or more broadly TCKs - third culture kids. As a reminder, a third culture kid is one who did (or is now) grow up in a different culture than their passport or "home culture" but also don't quite belong in their present culture. You can see that this group is actually larger than just missionary kids. 

Please take a few minutes to read it. It's especially helpful for parents, family members, churches, church leaders, mission leaders, youth leaders, Sunday School teachers, teacher teachers but especially those who are Christians. 

If you've followed me and my family for the past 20 years you are aware of some of the challenges our children have faced both abroad and here in Canada. We often made choices with our children's well-being in mind. The impact of a move to here, a trip to there, another flight across the ocean were all considered in our plans and choices. And yet, if you recall, it took a full three years at least, on our return to Canada, before I felt our children had each found their footing. It doesn't mean everything was smooth sailing from there, just that some of the bigger bumps at the time had been dealt with. There were many tears along the way, and hard questions and conversations.

Many, though certainly not all, TCKs return to their passport country during or at the end of high school when a lot of choices and plans for the future are being made. And in the midst of all this they are like any other teenager examining their faith. The article I mentioned above says, 

"The faith piece for MKs makes them unique because God is the instigator of all the greatness and all the painful parts of growing up cross-culturally in ministry,” Phoenix said. “Everything in their life is faith-related."

For any person, the examining of their faith is best done in a gracious, warm, and understanding community. Understanding TCKs is no easy thing, and I've had three to practice on 😊 But it is not just on the parents of TCKs (in fact that might be the last place they are willing to look), it is also on the community of believers, or at least certain people within that community, to seek to learn and understand TCKs and go alongside them as they work out their own faith in a strange place.

So I encourage you today, to pray for the TCKs you know in your church, at your school, among your kid's friends and so on. To be open to their questions and wonderings and wanderings. In Wycliffe Canada we have many families, with kids of all ages. This year alone we have several TCKs returning to Canada. If you would be interested in a resource for praying for our TCKs please email me. We ask a lot of our young people in the missions community. 

I borrow the closing comments in the CT article to leave with you, part of a poem by Abigal de Vuyst:

“How are you doing?”
I sigh; I know I am safe with them.
“It’s been a hard day.”
They help me process,
Cry with me and pray with me.

~~~

Hopkins, R., 2022. The Missionary Kids Are Not Alright. [online] ChristianityToday.com. Available at: <https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/march-web-only/third-culture-missionary-kids-trauma-deconstruction-church.html> [Accessed 29 March 2022]. 

Behind the Scenes

Did you know that the average Hollywood movie has approximately 300 employees involved from beginning to end who work to bring a movie together? Yet I can probably only name four or five people (maybe 10 to 20 for a large cast) per movie: leading actors, the director and/or producer, maybe the composer. Some movies have started including outtakes, or suspenseful teasers for the next film in the franchise. I think this is to keep us in our seats and encourage us to see that it takes a small village to make a movie. 

Bible translation specifically, but missions in general, operates in a similar fashion. It may be easy for you to think of those missionaries who specifically work as translators. These people are the ones who are more often the face of a translation project. To get them to that point they had to work with someone in recruitment, applications, at least a few people in finance, HR, communications, and IT. Then there are those welcoming them to the field, helping with orientation, plus our counterparts on the field who work in finance, HR, communications, IT and so on. Of course that is just for one person. If we have a family, there is also someone who connects with them in regards to education, education resources, and of course we also have international schools and all those who work in that realm. 

How many people does it take, from the first phone call to the very end when a missionary retires or moves on to whatever God has next for them, to enable one missionary's journey to happen? Off the top of my head I can think of about 25 others who would need to be involved. That is before considering their needed education (such as a master's degree in linguistics), pre-field language and culture learning course, re-entry programs, financial and prayer supporters, and anything connected to children and children's education and children's re-entry programs. 

We don't have an end credits scene in missions but I do want to encourage you today to remember that we do have a large group of people behind the scenes. We don't tend to amaze, inspire, or inform you with how many budgets were approved, how great an audit went, how many attempted hackings were prevented, how many phone calls were answered, or how many hours we spent working with a missionary to help keep them healthy and able to continue in their ministry. Sharing the triumphs and challenges in these positions are not the stuff of newsletters. I encourage you to find out who some of these people are and offer to pray for them and consider financially supporting them (see below).

If your church has always supported only missionaries who are "on the field", I encourage you, or your missions pastor/committee, to remember that no missionary would be on the field without those who work behind the scenes from Canada. I challenge you to prayerfully and financially support some who work in the home office that send your missionaries. These staff often have the most challenging time raising support as they are not considered by many to be missionaries.

Hopefully you are asking yourself, "How do I find these people?" Fortunately, I do have the answer to this question:

• You can write the missionaries you support about the people who work with or for them behind the scenes. 
• You can check out https://www.wycliffe.ca/about/members/ and scroll through the member bios. 
• You can write to me at mca.brandie@wycliffe.ca. 

Take time to consider one of the options above, and support those who support others. Also, thank you for supporting me. I too am needing to increase both my prayer and financial support team. If you are interested in this, in supporting the ministry of member care, please email me personally at brandie.green@wycliffe.ca

As Christmas comes we take time to reflect on the birth of Christ. Some of us celebrate advent to guide us in remembering that Jesus represents hope, love, joy, and peace. If ever there was a year that we needed those four things in our life, this is the year. 

There was some normalcy though. One of the highlights that helped work feel normal this year was the opportunity that my team had to get together in person, in October. This was the first time we were able to do so since 2019. Many of our teammates had never met in person. It was funny to see who thought who would be taller, who would be shorter, and so on. We gathered in Alberta for five days to meet and talk. While we have certainly been meeting online using zoom a couple times every month, being in person is just different. Also, we can accomplish a lot! This is the Wycliffe Canada member care team. 

Our vision is to:

"proactively support the wellness of our staff
 through relationships and processes
so they can thrive in their roles."

Something else to celebrate this year is my 20th anniversary with Wycliffe. It's almost hard to imagine that so much time has passed. But taking a bit of time to reflect, a lot has certainly happened in those twenty years to help the time go by. The hope, love, joy and peace of Christ is needed wherever we live, Asia or Canada, by all people, those who know him and those who don't. Thank you for walking with me along the way, praying for and financially supporting the ministry that I am involved in.

As 2021 winds down, I want to Wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 Marching Onward 

Is 2021 shaping up the way you anticipated? 

Or is this meme more your thinking? 

We had so much hope going from 2020 to 2021. Everything would be open again, kids would all be back in school, family gatherings, birthday parties, church, purchasing clothes/shoes and trying them on first or at least being able to return them.

Commuting, forcing introverts to be with other people, packing lunches, over packed airplanes, more money on gasoline, increased prices at the store to make up for (rightly) increased staff pay. 

Some time ago, when we had first returned to Canada, I wrote about the word paradox. How we could be sad and happy at the same time about that big change and how we had to be able to experience both. Covid, and just about everything about it, is one huge lesson in paradox. We no doubt each have our lists (or would if asked about it) of the positives/celebrations and negatives/difficulties. How where we choose to focus can greatly influence how we are doing at any given moment, day, week, maybe even year! How are you doing? Where is your focus? 

For Wycliffe Bible Translators, and our bigger family that includes SIL, one of the anticipated negatives/difficulties of Covid was the very work itself that we focus on: bible translation, literacy, scripture engagement, and capacity building. Certainly it meant some people needed to return to Canada, some do not know when or if they will be able to return overseas. It meant upheaval and uncertainty. For those I work with, it meant a lot of extra work. And can anyone else identify with Zoom fatigue? It’s a real thing! 

However, there have been many positives and things to celebrate. We celebrated the retirement of a couple near the end of 2020 and because of Covid we could not meet in person. Because of Covid we realized we could invite their former coworkers located in several different countries, as well as their family. Our president was able to join in. In some ways we were better able to honour this couple and their time with Wycliffe, in a more meaningful and deep way than if we had just done their celebration in our usual way. 

More than that, I have read of literacy classes and teacher training classes being offered over WhatsApp; meetings that generally cost several thousands of dollars to fly in people from all around the world have happened in a modified format over zoom, and translation in many situations has been able to continue to some extent if not almost as planned. In fact, there is so much good news to share I couldn’t do it justice. So I would like to share a video with you. Grab your favourite drink and put your feet up for about 45 minutes to see and hear many things we have had to celebrate this past year. 

Praise

• Our member care team has added some new team members over the past few months! We are so grateful that as we grow we are better able to support our staff

• That our work can continue no matter where we are

• That Eli, Ana, & Sophia continue to do well at school

Prayer

• For those who have been waiting to return to their work abroad

• For those who are planning to return home and the restrictions are very different here than what they have been used to

• For financial supporters, since returning to Canada my financial support has dropped quite low. If you know of friends who have a heart for seeing the bible translated in multiple languages, would you consider introducing us?

Who? What? Why? Where? When?

                                               

Dear Friends, it has been so long since I have written a proper letter. For that I apologize. Communication among partners is key and I have let that fall to the way side. This newsletter will be a quick catch up.                                                         

You may wonder what exactly has been going on and the short answer is ALOT! 

• We moved from 5 member care advisors to 3 and the number of members I care for increased significantly.  For several months it was rather overwhelming to come up to speed on new members and some ongoing challenging situations. 
• As that began to slow down and I felt things were settling my team underwent yet another change with the retirement of one more of our member care advisors. This didn't so much add to my work, rather it added to the unsettledness of that time. 
• We also added four new members to our team over the span of about 1 year: one who thankfully helps with much of the administrative work, one who works with our HR system as well as insurance program, one who focuses on risk and safety management, and one member care advisor.
• Additionally in the Spring and Autumn of 2019 I spent time in Calgary, Thailand, North Carolina, the UK, and Calgary again. 
• Calgary was for team meetings both times. My entire team is spread across Canada plus one many time zones away so meeting in person is very important for us.
• Thailand was to provide member care to our former colleagues who had gone through some very trying times in our old country.
• North Carolina was to evaluate a risk and security training program that our members would go through before moving overseas. 
• England was to attend a gathering of HR staff from across SIL and other Wycliffe organizations.
• As all the travel finished, plus the recovery and catch up, we began to hear of something called Covid 19. From March 2020 and for the next few months it was yet again very busy as I worked with members to decide what they should do...stay where they are, wait and see what happens, or return to Canada as soon as possible. In the early days information was changing rapidly, countries were making sudden decisions to close airports or borders, and flights were canceled last minute or the prices were exorbitant. At times I would anticipate a member flying home only to have the flight canceled last minute or changed...or a member with no flight home available and then suddenly have 24 hours to purchase tickets, pack, and often find a way to a different city to even get on the flight.
• Like many of you here in Canada Covid 19 means juggling work and kids at home. All day. All the time. 
• The summer was a welcome reprieve and the first time it felt like there was space and time to breathe. And so now I have felt collected enough to sit down and write a letter to you to catch you up. 

In the midst of all of this my regular work in member care has continued. The pandemic has changed the way many people work around the world. For me, though much of what I do is already online, face to meetings have been placed on hold since March. These are the highlight of my work for me, spending time with people, listening to their stories, providing a safe place to talk about the good times as well as the difficult ones. As you walked with us through our return to Canada you know it is not always an easy time. Providing care over zoom, or google hangouts has certainly stretched how I work. 

All meetings are now online, everything from debriefing to team meetings. Zoom fatigue is a real thing. Below is a picture of the member care team (includes member care advisors, overseas insurance administrator, data administrator, and travel and risk management). This meeting happens across 5 time zones and starts at 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 8am the next day for my various teammates!

But we continue to do what we do so that Wycliffe Canada can continue to play its part in bringing God's word to those who don't have it. Thank you for your ongoing financial and prayer support. I am thankful for the way you have cared for me, and my family, since we started with Wycliffe almost 20 years ago. 

"Gobsmacked" from the President of Wycliffe Canada

I have often reshared a post on facebook but I have never gone through the 'trouble', the 2 or 3 clicks it takes are so much work you know, to repost a blog on my blog. But I am doing so today.

So why repost this one called Gobsmacked, by Wycliffe Canada's president (this post is edited to include the post below as it is no longer available online)?

• because we first started our cross-cultural experience in Attawapiskat
• because both of my sisters live and work in Moosonee
• because I am part Metis and while that is only a small part of who I am, it is a part of who I am
• because Roy, the president of Wycliffe Bible Translators is right when he says:

      But the way I understand the Bible, believers should be first in line to repent, first in line to forgive, first in line to reconcile. Therefore the Church must lead with apology and honest attempts at addressing past wrongs.

~~~~~~

“Gobsmacked”

2018 – 04 – 06

by: Roy Eyre

That was not the word I was expecting to hear from a federal judge.  I was attending a Call to the Bar ceremony for a colleague stepping into a role as our in-house legal counsel and privacy officer.  An experienced lawyer stood and gave the judge an introduction to our colleague Maria Mach and to Wycliffe Bible Translators.  Before the judge began her prepared comments, she paused to respond to what she’d heard.

“I’m not sure if ‘gobsmacked’ is the right word, but I’m going to use it.  Given all the harm that the faith community has done to them, I’m gobsmacked that the First Nations would be coming to a Christian organization to help them with literacy and translation!”

The judge is right in implicating the faith community, of course.  Mark MacDonald, National Indigenous Bishop for the Anglican Church, described it as an intentional strategy at the time: “The mission of the church had been to suppress our cultures.”  The results are heart-breaking on so many levels.  A Plains Cree bishop told me, “Our generation is blaming the Church for losing their language and culture,”

Doesn’t that break your heart?

So you can imagine how an outsider would view our current work; the kind of cooperative effort we’re engaging in is stunning.  To me, it just makes sense.  Yes, the residential schools were cooperative efforts between government and Church.  Both share blame.  But the way I understand the Bible, believers should be the first in line to repent, first in line to forgive, first in line to reconcile.  Therefore the Church must lead with apology and honest attempts at addressing past wrongs.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called religious denominations to take action in educating on our tragic history and why apologies were necessary, in respecting indigenous culture and spirituality, in repudiating colonial thinking, and in actively seeking reconciliation.*

Having done that, an innovative collaboration can take place.  The Cree have some interesting motivations to ask us for help.

In restoring their languages, the First Nations seek to reclaim their cultural identity and stem the tide of alcoholism, victimization and suicides.  Oji-Cree teacher Zipporah Mamakwa longs for a change in the next generation:

“It is my belief as a language teacher that the language amongst our children brings a sense of identity, a sense of belonging, a sense of security and comfort.  We don’t feel whole without our language.”

But that’s just the first step.  Our Cree brothers and sisters believe their people need to understand how God views them.  God wants to speak directly to every man, woman and child to show them they are created in His image, that He loves them, that He understands their pain and that He desires to redeem what has been broken and lost.  That understanding doesn’t come because someone outside their culture tells them.  It comes when they can hear God speaking their language.  The Bible clothed in local language and culture is never an outsider.

These two strands come together powerfully to effect real change.  A holistic program that blends literacy, language development, community development, health awareness and mother-tongue education together with the Bible in a language that speaks to the heart can be the catalyst for a whole new trajectory.  Indigenous people groups can see themselves as God sees them.  The can plan for a more hope-filled future.  They can find healing from past hurts and injustice.  Self-esteem grows, as the people begin to use their own language.  Quality of life and life expectancy increases.  Children’s education and adult literacy reverse the sense of inadequacy and ignorance.  Relationships in families improve.

Why shouldn’t the Church go first in atoning for past harm?  Why shouldn’t the First Nations see in us a willingness to make amends and seek reconciliation?  If we know the gospel and the lavish grace of our Saviour, we know that no sin is too great, and no wounds too deep for His healing touch.  If we know the immense power of radical repentance, confession and forgiveness, we aren’t gobsmacked when God restores a path for the First Nations to work with a Christian organization like ours.

This is not Wycliffe’s story.  It’s not even the First Nations’ story.  It’s God’s story, and we’re privileged to play a part together in it.

Interested in learning more about Wycliffe’s work among the Cree?  Even better, you can participate through funding.  Check out the Cree Initiative or contact us.

If you want a story today of God's redemption, even when it's the actions of the church which must be redeemed, take a few minutes and read through this post. And maybe, even, follow the other links and learn more about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 

*Not familiar with the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action that specifically called out the faith community and church denominations?  For an easy-to-read version, click here.  Start with nos. 48, 49, 50, 59, and 60.  CBC recently created an assessment of progress at Beyond94, and I was pleased to see that the Christians have gone first.  The mainline churches responsible for so many of the residential schools are leading the way.  The Kairos program, which we have invested heavily in, is also mentioned.  But there’s very litter progress mentioned from evangelical denominations.

Life in the Fast Lane

It has been five months since I last sat down and thought to myself "I don't have a lot to do, I should write an update." Why? Because the last 5 months have been FULL. Yes, all capitals are required. I have been living life on high speed for several months and with summer, thankfully, life and work will slow down for a time. Here is a bird's-eye view of what has been going on.

March

• in early January Wycliffe's Toronto Office was put up for sale and we expected it to take five to six months to sell. Instead it sold very quickly and with a closing date of March 16th (which also happened to be the last Friday of March Break). So the first full week of March was packing the office and the first Monday of March Break saw me at our new office storing everything that was being moved over. We had 20 years worth of office stuff to sort through!
• also in March we bought a house and put our home on the market. The house we bought is only about a five minute drive from our old house but puts us within the same high school boundary lines as 95% of our kids' classmates. 

April

• Though we left our old office in March, our new location was not yet ready for us. For several weeks each Toronto staff member worked from home. On April 2 and 3 we began the process of unpacking all the boxes, which we had stored at the new location, receiving delivery of office furniture, setting up computers and networks, making sure phones worked, etc. This was a long and busy week and I was grateful to have two colleagues from our head office - our properties manager and one of our IT staff. We are now located in a building owned by SIM and shared by us along with OMF (moving in in mid-August), Jews for Jesus, Interserve, and the Langham Partnership.
• Jeff traveled to Alaska for ten days, during which I traveled to Campbellville, Ontario (near Milton, on the west side of Toronto) for a week of meetings with my member care colleagues. During these meetings we worked on the next budget, reviewed and updated policies, and walked many times around the building trying to find cell phone signals :) Thankfully Jeff's parents came up to stay with the kids and Grandpa Green did a great job on his own with them for a few days while Grandma was at her own work meetings.
• The week after we both arrived home Jeff and I both spent a day in Guelph. One of the ways, perhaps the only way, our jobs overlap is in relation to Cree Bible translations in Canada. Each year Cree Bible translators come together for a training workshop in Guelph. The projects represented are split between Wycliffe Canada and Canadian Bible Society. While Jeff went to teach at the workshop, I went to meet with Wycliffe members who also work in these projects often as trainers and consultants. We did not, however, manage to go on the same day.
• During the last week of April Jeff was in Italy for work meetings. This was his second last training/orientation meeting for working with Canadian Bible Society. 

May

• Directly after Jeff's trip to Italy, I was in the Kitchener/Waterloo area for a two day program called Discover Wycliffe during which people interested in Wycliffe can come and get an overview of the who, why, what, and hows of Wycliffe Canada. I taught two sessions during this time, one on health and one on cross cultural living. 
  

• We moved house on May tenth, which means over the past several weeks we were also packing! With the help of our small group and Jeff's parents we loaded up a large UHaul (which. by the way, I drove!) and moved about 1 km away, and set up home for the last time, honest. 
• Two days after moving Jeff left for his last two-week on-campus residency near Boston, Mass, as part of his D.Min. Those two weeks were not without hiccups in our new house but my folks came down for five days and helped me set up, buy carpets and other things, and enlarge the patio and put in a small garden. A lot of work but I am so grateful for our home and them. We are in a very friendly neighbourhood.

June

June was truly meant to be slow. I had planned for it to be slow. And even now I look at my calendar and there are not big events. But there were several little events:

• numerous plumbing appointments (it turns out we have a stream under our house; I am not joking, I promise)
• meetings with members overseas who are facing some challenges in their assignments, with members returning to Canada for home assignment and needing a space to process, and meeting with others moving back to Canada and deciding what is next for them
• one of my members died suddenly in early June
• Ana was baptized!
• the girls' school's end-of-year festival, which I love to help run and makes an 11-hour day from set-up through tear-down
• finalizing an agreement to send Wycliffe Canada members to somewhere we've never sent our members. This was exciting though laborious work and came to a satisfying conclusion a week ago. 

Going forward, the summer is expected to be less busy, at least that is what the calendar says. With the kids home every day I leave the house at 6 a.m. and work till noon. While that is awfully early for this night-person it lets me spend more of the daytime at home and truly, our kids are not moving much before 10 or 11 a.m. anyway.


As you read above, there are many things I am thankful for. As you give thanks with me for the things above, please pray for 

• rest over the summer
• Ana, who is having difficulty falling asleep at night because she is alone in her room
• Eli, who will be starting a new school for gr. 10 - he will be back with his classmates from gr. 8, so this is a plus
• the members returning to the field after a time in Canada - that I would do due diligence in ensuring each member is ready to return (sufficient finances, sufficient rest, mentally, spiritually & emotionally healthy...)
• two families who have returned to Canada permanently, that each would know where and how God is leading them next