The Newmarches in Nepal

01/08/2026

For me, and for our family, serving overseas has always been part of the plan.  Specifically, to serve at an international school.  This was for pragmatic reasons – it fits our qualifications, experience and giftings.  But also for kingdom reasons, since international schools are a hugely important part of enabling families to go, and to remain, on the mission field.

Tim and I explored a few different options for how and where, and spoke to a couple of different mission organisations, and other places.  And while the continent we’ve ended up in is not the one we originally had in mind, one thing has remained constant – the who of our calling.

When God calls parents to work in overseas missions, their children immediately acquire a new facet of their identity – they become Third Culture Kids.

A formal definition of the term: a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who spends a significant part of his or her first eighteen years of life accompanying parents into a country that is different from at least one parents’ passport country, due to a parent’s choice of work or training. 

There are different “subsets” of TCKs (missionary kids, embassy kids, kids from military families or whose parents work for international businesses/NGOs…) and while each child and each family and each family situation is unique, there are common challenges and blessings that come from being a TCK, regardless of which subset you belong to, or what your specific circumstances are.  These challenges have been known of anecdotally for a long time (and the term TCK itself has been around at least since the late eighties), but more recently, have begun to be studied and written about more systematically.

In her wonderful and highly readable book “Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids” (2020), Lauren Wells talks about the ampersand (&) nature of TCK life.  That growing up as a TCK is a both/and situation – wonderful and difficult.  Joy-filled and grief-filled.  So good and so hard.

TCK life provides many wonderful opportunities – opportunities to have incredible experiences, to develop character and skills, and to acquire cool stories.  Some of the good things that can come out of the TCK experience are: the development of a global perspective, of adaptation and language skills, of high emotional intelligence and empathy levels, of resilience and hope, of a complex identity, and of healthy self-confidence.

But there are also common challenges in TCK life, particularly:

• Grief and loss
• Trauma
• Toxic stress
• Difficulty with identity formation
• A sense of not belonging anywhere
• Difficulty sustaining deep, meaningful relationships
• Difficulty settling down/a high need for change

These challenges interweave with and feed off each other.

Many of the difficult experiences in TCK life cannot be prevented, but are simply part of the life that their family signed up for, especially for TCKs living in developing or unstable nations. 

Challenges are in and of themselves not always a bad thing.  Many of the character traits that we want for our children are forged and refined through trial.  There are no shortcuts to moral development.

Ultimately, the good is real, and the bad is real, and both of them have a very real impact on the mental health and wellbeing of these kids, both now and in their future adult lives.

During discussions with one mission organisation, I made the comment that I was not willing to sacrifice my family for the sake of the mission.  This did not go down well.  While I am completely onboard with not making an idol out of family, I think that being asked to choose between a successful mission and a successful family is a false dichotomy.

Yes there will be sacrifices, and hard choices may have to be made.  But I return again to Lauren Wells’ ampersand.  Family AND mission.  Find a way for both.

As we work at KISC, we play a small part in helping missionary parents to find the ampersand too.  So that they can work in the roles God has called them to here in Nepal (creation care, social justice, church leader training, etc), AND be part of a community where their children will be supported to flourish, so that the griefs of TCK life can be minimised, and the joys maximised.  Through our presence and our engagement, we demonstrate to TCKs that the family’s mission matters AND they as individuals matter, to us and to our Heavenly Father.

What a joy, and what a privilege.

– Alex

References

“Raising Up A Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids: A Practical Guide to Preventative Care” by Lauren Wells (2020)

“Third Culture Kids (3^rd Edition): Growing Up Among Worlds” by David C. Pollock, Ruth E. Van Reken, & Michael V. Pollock (Nicholas Brealey, 2017)

“Belonging Everywhere and Nowhere: Insights into Counselling the Globally Mobile” by Lois J. Bushong (Mango Tree Intercultural Services, 2013) My own brain