“Tell me about your family!” 

“How does your family feel about your living abroad?”

“Do you see your family often?”

I imagine you regularly receive these types of questions in your life as a cross-cultural worker, and they don’t always have simple answers. The concept of family can be complex for anyone regardless of location; however, our status as residents of foreign lands has the potential to increase the levels of complexity. 

For some of us, the word family conjures up mostly positive emotions. Maybe we have a spouse and children in a healthy home environment. We might have extended family members back in America who stay in touch with us, pray for us, and even visit us where we live. Or we have a close-knit team community that feels and functions like a family on the field. What great blessings!

Others of us lack such happy associations with family. Perhaps we long to be married but aren’t or ache for children but have none. Maybe our extended family situation is not a happy one: we carry many wounds from years of dysfunctional relationships and could only dream of supportive family members who want to come visit. Or we see others with healthy and happy teams but face a reality in which we’re consumed with loneliness. 

In both the “good” and the “bad” family scenarios, we can be tempted to make the gift (or perceived lack thereof) of family into an ultimate thing. Those of us with positive family relationships can look to them as idols or see them as commodities we deserve, not gifts graciously bestowed. We can base our worth in them and even look to them as holiness indicators. 

On the flip side, those of us without such positive familial situations can grow bitter at God over the lack of them, again seeing them as things deserved. We might feel less qualified for ministry because of some perceived defect or be eaten up by envy of those around us with happy families. 

In both cases, as is so often with our sinful hearts, we desire the gift more than the Giver. We view the gift as ultimate instead of the Giver. Our hearts can grow proud in either situation: we need the truly ultimate gift of grace and mercy each day from our Good Father to keep us humble and keep us desiring Him above all else.