We admit, it’s not always easy to raise children in a new culture, but it has also created some of the most incredible people we’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Team Expansion’s TCK Care team exists to provide preventive and responsive care for our TCKs and their families as they navigate each season of cross-cultural life and ministry. We are committed to helping our TCKs and their families thrive.
TCK Ministry
Third Culture Kids
Learn How We Support TCKs and Their Families
Services We Provide our TCKs and Their Families
Community
- TCK video calls with peers (weekly)
- Storytime via video call for our littlest TCKs (monthly)
- Video calls for moms of TCKs and dads of TCKs (monthly)
- TCK newsletter (monthly)
- Support group video calls for the extended family of TCKs and families going through repatriation (monthly)
Care
- Programming/pre-field training for kids
- Pre-field consulting with parents
- Programming and care for TCKs of all ages at our yearly org gathering
- Anchoring and processing activities for TCKs and families during home office visits
- Additional consulting/processing/field visits for families as requested
- Individual counseling as requested
Resources
- Child safety training for all org members
- Monthly events/resources newsletter for parents
- TCK Prayer Force emails (interviews and insight to encourage intentional prayer for TCKs)
- Education consultation
- TCK re-entry program
- Scholarship information for TCKs looking at colleges
”This third culture kid journey is a journey laced with grace. Much of our past has been put into photo albums, blog posts, and memories of the heart. There is no doubt this life of pilgrimage comes with unique challenges, peculiar pains, unspoken losses – but for all those, there is always and ever grace. To communicate that grace to your kids is the biggest gift you will ever give them.
Marilyn Gardner
Church Involvement for TCKs
VOLUNTEER
Champion for volunteers at Team Expansion in Louisville, KY. Way beyond childcare, we are looking to equip young minds and hearts for living and loving abroad with their families and we need more joyful helpers during our missionary trainings and home service appointments. We’ve even had whole children’s ministry teams come and serve during weeks of big training events. To volunteer with TCKs, fill out this volunteer application and mail or email it to Team Expansion, Attn: TCK Department.
TEACH YOUR KIDS AT VBS OR SUNDAY SCHOOL
Invite a missionary to speak, especially someone your church supports. Have attendants bring in coins to donate, maybe with a competition twist like boys vs girls, or using the money to count as votes for one thing or another. Kids who have been exposed to the idea of missions early on will have a better chance of being compassionate friends to TCKs they meet.
ORGANIZE PEN PALS
We can link your children’s ministry classes to real TCKs they can write to and ask questions of and pray for. This is not to seek the novelty of peering into a foreign life, but a way to help TCKs feel that they are normal and have friends back in their passport country, while educating children about the missionary life. Please be understanding there is a limited number of families that can participate, so we may not be able to meet all requests.
PRAY
Use the TCK Prayer Force emails, or prayer requests from the missionary families your congregation supports, and host special prayer services just focused on the kids’ needs – or include them in regular corporate prayers during your weekly worship.
SUPPORT A FAMILY
Missions takes financial support, and churches can do this beautifully. If you don’t know of any missionary families, we can connect you! Then be sure to get to know the kids, what they might like in care packages, send them birthday cards, subscribe them to magazines on subjects they love, help them feel like part of the fold when their family visits on furlough. Contact Maleah at mweiss@teamexpansion.org for more information.
ADOPT COLLEGE-AGE MKS
TCKs transitioning from their family’s country of service to the U.S.A. for college or to start their adult life is common and can be difficult, especially if the family stayed abroad. Once you know they’re among you, a family or two in your congregation could have them for dinner, host them for holidays, remember their birthdays, show them best places to shop for necessities, and just help them have a home base during this time.