By Mona Dunckel,
BMM Advisory Council member
As the head of the Social Studies Department at Bob Jones University, Mona is a known expert on “Third-Culture Kids” and has been an MK consultant to several missionary agencies. A great side benefit of her role has been spending a number of summers as MK “Aunt-in-Residence” to her friends’ children on the mission field.
Each of us carries some assumptions about MKs, shaped by those we have met, but often there are flaws in our thinking. We may assume that all MKs are alike because they all have the same experiences. However, growing up an MK does not create “cookie-cutter kids.” Each child is shaped by unique events in diverse cultures, and those events are experienced by individuals with various gifts, personalities, and sensitivities. The MK experience shapes each child in a different way.
We may assume that all MKs like to perform or be in the spotlight in the churches their families visit while on furlough, but that, too, is not always an accurate assumption. Because MKs do have differing personalities and gifts, not all of them thrive on the impromptu performances they are often asked to give.
Another false assumption is that MKs will outgrow their identity. It never happens; there is no such thing as a former MK. The survey responses from adult MKs that appear in this issue clearly reveal that growing up in a culture that is not their sending culture gives MKs experiences that shape the adults they become.
Their cross-cultural childhood experiences do, however, create some commonalities, especially in MKs’ perceptions of the world, of different cultures, and of their places in those cultures. MKs may feel a part of both their sending culture and their field culture, but at the same time feel that they are not totally part of either. There is one place where MKs do seem to feel totally at home—with other MKs, because they share and understand similar transcultural experiences.
It may be true that we have never stopped to think about MKs much at all. If that is the case, we should recognize that these young people need our prayers as much as their parents do and that there are special ways that we can pray for them and minister to them.