IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS:
SHEPHERDING MK’S/TCK’S

Definitely one of God’s saintliest servants, Nancy Carriger, spent over thirty years serving MK’s and TCK’s in Nigeria and Niger.

I Peter 5: 2-3 ESV

. . . shepherd the flock of God
that is among you, exercising oversight,
not under compulsion, but willingly,
as God would have you.
not for shameful gain, but eagerly,
not domineering over those in your charge,
but being examples to the flock.

How Can I Say Thank You?

My Father in Heaven,
how do I begin to say
“Thank You!”
to Your Heroes
who laughed with
our children and
took time when
they cried,
who hugged them
when needed
and listened
to their tales
and fed them
and did all those
things they so
needed when
we couldn’t be
there with them,
when they prayed for
them and helped
them to pray
with faith in our
Savior who loves
them and shepherds
them even as You do.

Nancy Carriger and Sahel Academy students loved playing softball together.

Some of the finest Christians I have ever been privileged to know as friends and as brothers and sisters in the Lord, have been those missionaries who lovingly and yet firmly shepherded the MK’s and TCK’s entrusted into their care. Now, you well be asking, who in the world are MK’s and TCK’S and what do you mean when you say, “shepherding” them? Well MK’s are Missionary Kids, the children of missionaries. TCK’s are Third Culture Kids, a more widely applied label—applying to the children of missionaries, international business people, military personnel, and others who work away from their home country and take their children with them. So, for our understanding, the children of our missionaries serving outside United States are both MK’S and TCK’S. For our missionary children, belonging to these particular population groups, brings both unique opportunities, but also unparalleled challenges which follow them throughout their lives.

Nancy began her service serving as a dorm parent to younger children at Kent Academy outside of Jos, Nigeria.

The truth is, MK’s and TCK’S enjoy rare privileges as they experience other cultures from the inside of them, so to speak. Our own children, having been born  and raised in Nigeria, know what it means to live in Africa. They understand well the nature of Africans, their traditions and their strengths, along with their challenges. However, MK’s and TCK’s also have to tackle the reality of not feeling completely at home in their parents’ home culture nor in their own adopted culture. They do not fully belong to either. So, they are a Third Culture, a culture betwixt and between, without being fully at home in either the first (the parents’ culture) or the second, (the adopted culture) where they live as a family.

I know, it’s complicated. Here’s the issue: MK’s and TCK’s are God’s beautiful children. They are loved by Him and need to be loved by His people sensitively and prayerfully. It takes God-called and very much Spirit-dominated women and men to shepherd them through school and prepare them for what will always be a different path into and throughout adulthood. Thank God, Becky and I have counted as dear friends, and our children have known as aunts and uncles, missionary colleagues who have met this challenge with Christ-like love and humor and toughness. We have known godly and (in our humble opinion) sainted house parents, teachers, coaches, principals and chaplains who have blessed hundreds of MK’s and TCK’s along their way in both Nigeria and Niger.

Nancy finds time to meet one-one with one of the MK’s at Sahel Academy in Niger.

In this post I want to focus on just one lady, Nancy Carriger, born in the U.S. on May 8, 1958. Nancy was adopted at five months, and according to her biological mother’s wishes, into a Christian family. In that loving Christian family, she accepted Jesus as her Savior at five. At seven she heard a missionary from Japan speaking, and told her Mom she wanted someday to be a missionary. The family moved with Nancy to Canada when she was nine. Nancy says she made a significant rededication of her life to the Lord when she was fourteen, as she realized she needed to choose a path moving more completely toward Jesus and a lifestyle which would please HIm.

Nancy attended Prairie High School on the campus of Prairie Bible College in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada. While there she was trying to figure out how missions could fit in her life. She struggled with math, science, and French. In the eleventh grade Nancy met an MK from Ethiopia. This friend explained to Nancy how MK’s needed folks who fully love them and are willing to get to know them not just as MK’s but as individuals loved by God. This conversation set Nancy’s course toward her life work in missions—loving and serving MK’s and TCK’s.

Nancy delighted students every Christmas as a purple elf delivering candy canes.

After high school, Nancy earned a Bible College degree in Missions and Bible Religious Education. She got her first job on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, where she got involved with a small church plant, which actually grew and became her original sending church. Even today this church carries some of her support.

In 1984 Nancy joined SIM (Serving In Missions) and in August, 1985 headed to Nigeria to work at Kent Academy outside Jos. At this school for MK’s Nancy served as a dormitory parent for five years, and she loved it. She returned to Canada for a home assignment in 1990, and returned to school to add to her education, earning a Teacher Aide’s certificate. Then when was ready to return, she learned there was no available position in Nigeria; but she was needed at Sahel Academy in Niger. So, in mid-January of 1998 she arrived in Niamey to begin teaching at Sahel Academy. Her first struggle came in trying to learn French, even though the language had been so tough back in high school. She testifies that throughout her career she has worked hard to do her best in French, and Nigeriens have been patient with her efforts. Her second struggle came as she had to adjust to living in the capital city, Niamey.

Nancy always loved teaching Bible classes as she shared the Gospel in every single lesson.

Still, Nancy quickly learned that this was the place God wanted to place her to bless the MK’s and TCK’s always, in the Love of Jesus. Even when it came time for her home assignments, she always felt sad because she was truly leaving her home, the place God had designed for her. Through the years Nancy did anything and everything to share the Love and Knowledge of God with her students. She taught Bible, at one time, to every student in the school. And as she taught, she created one of the most inviting and intriguing classrooms I ever encountered in all of my own years of teaching. She coached softball—a sport she dearly loved. She worked with drama—she was known as a “ham” inside and outside the classroom—always ready to have some fun. Then, in her desire to truly serve the students more and more, she became the School Registrar, keeping student records and making sure their transcripts with all of the pertinent details made their often complicated college application process from Niger as simple as it could be.

Basically, Nancy said to God; “Here I am. Show me everything I can do to love these beautiful students in the name of Jesus. I will do it in the power of the Holy Spirit. I am here for You, then for them. I want by all means, to help them find Jesus as their Savior.” Nancy faithfully fulfilled this commitment for almost twenty-seven years at Sahel, even through floods and relocations, her faith in God and her calling to be among His children and her students, never wavered.

Nancy may be quite short, but her faith in Jesus is as tall as they come.

And, believe me Nancy’s remarkable dedication to MK’s and TCK’s does not stand alone. In the lives of our own children I would mention just a few names of heroes we will always honor with deep, deep gratitude to folks like Ward and Lou Ann Nicholson, Jay and Heidi Tolar, Jimmy and Sylvia Huey, Andy and Judy Norman, Larry and Linda Taylor, Dennis and May Clermont, and Sherry Woods—there are way too many more to mention—talking about a “great cloud of witnesses.” Praise God. They made it ALL ABOUT JESUS.

Nancy’s Pitch? Pray for MK’s and TCK’s today.

I just have to make this appeal directly to your hearts: As you pray, lift up our heroic, our courageous, our truly wonderful MK’s and TCK’s who throughout their lives bear the honor and the burden of following their parents’ calling into different cultures all over the world. It is a beautiful life. It is a difficult life. AND pray, now that you know her, for Nancy and so many others just like her who have given their whole selves into loving and caring for MK’s and TCK’s.

We all have stories to tell, in all our stories—IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS.