Third Culture Kids
By Leah Pieri, first published in Compass Winter 2025
“A ‘Third Culture Kid’ (TCK) is a child who spent a significant portion of their formative years outside their parents’ home culture, often in a different country or environment. This experience leads them to create their own unique ‘third’ culture, blending elements of their parents’ culture, the culture of their host country, and their own personal experiences.”1
I am only one of many TCKs spread throughout Australia, some more visible than others. We TCKs can struggle with adjusting to living in a different culture. We don’t know where we belong and if we belong. The only way to truly know who you are, your worth and where you belong is through God and being part of His family.
I wrestled with the changes and finding my way into Australian culture. When moving across the world at eight years old I struggled to find myself and who I was. I struggled with severe anxiety, so much so that I couldn’t sleep at night unless my mum or dad was sitting right beside me until my eyes were closed. I didn’t want to go to school because I was bullied and constantly made fun of because of my accent, basically being made into a show pony for those who thought my accent was cool. The only place at that time that I felt like I belonged was in my room, hidden away because it seemed like the rest of my family had their life together. My siblings all made friends quickly, or had people that we already knew in their year groups that introduced them to other people. I felt like I was left to fend for myself and that I was meant to struggle.
God is the only one who can make you feel
whole in a time and place where you feel split
between being three different people.
To battle my anxiety, my mum suggested I write a ‘thankful book’ which included writing down everything I was thankful for and then praying them out loud to God to replace all the negative thoughts and feelings with thankfulness. I slowly became calmer and more relaxed with where I was. This processing was part of God’s provision and helped me realise that my TCK culture was created by Him. Through this I learnt I wasn’t alone and that I was worth being part of God’s family. That even though I was not fully Australian or American, I was fully loved and desired by God.
“Truly he is my rock and my salvation: he is my fortress; I will never be shaken.” ~ Psalm 62:2
A much younger Leah with her family.
1. DC Pollock, RE Van Reken & MV Pollock, Third culture kids: the experience of growing up among worlds, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, Boston, 2017
Leah Pieri, who is part of our Adminsitration team, was born in the USA but has called Sydney home since her family migrated to Australia in 2010 (before she was even double-digits). Now all grown up, she is married and is establishing her own family with husband, Caleb. If you would like to support Leah’s work, please visit her Staff Profile Page: https://navigators.org.au/staff/pieril/
Featured photograph of two children running at the beach by annie Spratt on Unsplash. All other photos supplied.
Belonging Before Believing
By Luke Midena, Canberra Community Leader, first published in Compass Winter 2021 edition
You may have heard the phrase, ‘belong before believe’. It was the catchcry of some within the Emerging Church Movement of the last few decades. Driven by a desire to share Christ with the world, allowing people to ‘belong’ to God’s people before they ‘believe’ in Christ was a way of erasing the distinction between Christians and non-Christians.[1]
Of course, the obvious problem of including all people among the saved (universalism) is that it is at odds with Jesus’ clear teaching that those without faith in him will be excluded from the kingdom (Matt. 25:31-46). So, can people belong before they believe? Or should we abandon the phrase altogether?
The short answer is … not necessarily! We shouldn’t abandon this notion, but we do need to have a gospel focus.
If you’ve made it a practice to read the bible with non-Christian friends for some time, you might be able to relate to a scenario wherein I’ve often found myself. We meet regularly at a café on campus, or near their work, and read and discuss one of the gospels. The conversations are fun and satisfying, and over time, we become good friends. They seem to ask the right questions – ‘What does Jesus mean? What’s he doing?’ – and they seem to find the right answers – ‘he’s highlighting the problem with the world’, ‘he’s solving it through his death on the cross’. But it never goes further than comprehension. They are never quite ready to ‘believe’ in Jesus. As the months roll on I sense their interest in the gospel waning and I become increasingly direct: ‘Not making a decision is a decision’, I say. They seem not to hear me as they smile and commend my sincerity. ‘What stimulating conversations we have’, they politely say. They assure me that it’s only Christianity they are rejecting, not me – as if that provides some kind of comfort. But of course, it’s their salvation which is of the utmost importance. So where to from here?
Have you had a similar experience? How can the people we meet one-on-one come face-to-face with the gospel, yet remain ambivalent? This is where ‘belong before believe’ has practical value.
Mutua Mahiaini, the International President of the Navigators, recently wrote that “many Navigators around the world are joyfully discovering the secret of working together among the lost, as opposed to serving as ‘lone rangers’”. This is true of us, both on campus and among workers. We’re finding that people are more willing to ‘believe’ in Christ if they first feel like they ‘belong’ to our group, and have a friendship with us.
…relationships are a part of what gives our lives a sense of meaning.
There’s nothing revolutionary about this – cynically, sometimes evangelism training in western culture amounts to nothing more than friendship training. The principles are simple, but admittedly, quite challenging for people with hyper-individualistic priorities, who treat time as the ultimate treasure to be spent carefully and sparingly. I myself am guilty of behaving like this at times. But humans are social beings, and relationships are part of what gives our lives a sense of meaning.
So, how can our communities offer friendship? How can we be good friends?
In Romans 12 Paul puts it quite simply – ‘Let love be genuine’ (v. 9). Friendship is, after all, love of another. Paul states that this involves being affectionate (v. 9), respectful (v. 10), patient (v. 12), generous (v. 13), hospitable (v. 13), kind to adversaries (vv. 14, 20-21), empathetic (v. 15), congenial (v. 16), humble (v. 16), peaceable (vv. 17-18)… Are you in a community of believers characterised by these traits?
Again and again, we find that when our friends who are investigating Christianity experience the richness of the gospel through a communal embrace, it is impossible for them to dismiss the gospel as just a nice idea.
Earlier this year, a student who was almost completely disinterested in Christianity – who had no interest in reading or discussing the bible or going to church, but who had been enjoying the friendship of our weekly Nav student night – approached me. ‘I’m not like everyone else’, he said. At first, I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Then he said, ‘Everyone is so sincere in their belief, I’m not like that’, implying this was a major problem. The penny dropped: he wanted whatever it was that the Christians around him had; he just wasn’t sure what that was. In the following weeks I had the opportunity to share the gospel, and he received Christ.
Like many others, he belonged before he believed. God’s Spirit uses friendship within communities of believers to soften hearts and open minds to the gospel. In 1 Peter 2:12 (MSG), Paul encourages: ‘Live an exemplary life in your neighbourhood so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.’
What might it look like for your Christian community to befriend those in your neighbourhood?
I pray that we would all be more like Paul, who let love be genuine …And ultimately like Jesus, who laid his life down for his friends (Jn. 15:13).
[1] See, for example, Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, 25-26, 306-307.
