DELTA, BC – MORE Network Services is one of only a few missional organizations in North America that specializes in facilitating the growth of missionary kids (MKs).

Now in its 10^th year, MORE is achieving its goal of mission-sending and training organizations, churches, and individuals to work “collaboratively and congenially” with each other. Network members provide inter-agency care service for cross-cultural MKs or, as they are now being labeled, TCKs. TCK is the 21^st-century euphemism that identifies missionary kids as “Third Culture Kids.”

Whether we refer to them as MKs or TCKs, these kids have lifestyles and face decisions that “normal” kids do not.

In fact, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism {ABWE} recently offered a blog post on their website entitled, “4 Things Missionary Kids Won’t Tell You.” The number one thing on their list is that they have “an indescribable yearning just to be normal.”

The children of cross-cultural missionaries often have identity problems. Sometimes it’s because they are outsiders on the mission field. That doesn’t mean they feel derision. However, they do have to bear with reconciling that their passport is Canadian or American, but they live somewhere else. They can suffer from a sense of displacement, especially as they maneuver the process of self-identity.

Upon their return home, they are often out-of-step with the culture and fashions in their homeland. They may even wonder which country really is their home.

It is likely that they will be introduced as “the young lady from Brazil” when the reality is that she is from “here” but has been living in Brazil.

MKs are normal kids. Many of them, however, can’t figure what “normal” is.

That is just a small taste that gave evidence for the need to provide holistic support for MKs transitioning back to Canada. Between summer 2011 and 2012, prayer and planning set the table for introducing the Canadian Missionary Kid Network (CMKN) in November 2012. The goal was to build a network of biblically-grounded organizations willing to create and share resources to minister to missionary families in transition.

The mission was daunting and far too complex for a single agency to address successfully. The CMKN morphed into a part of the newly-founded and broader-spectrum ministry of the MORE Network (Missionary Opportunities for Resourcing and Equipping).

Within a mere five years, 28 like-minded Christian missionary agencies had joined the MORE Network. The directors of MORE include men and women who were MKs, who spent decades in foreign lands (including Peru, Argentina, India, Pakistan, and Thailand), and representatives of some of the network agencies (including Wycliffe Canada, MissionGo, MissionPrep, and Outreach Canada).

The MORE website declares that “The strength of this ministry is in the cooperation of people associated with many organizations Canada-wide, willingly working together, doing what we have not been able to do alone. In humility, in mutual submission, we serve together.”

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