If you've been around the world of missions for long, you've probably heard the term RAFT in connection with healthy transitions. We first heard this term in our orientation and were really able to understand it more in reading Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken, published by Intercultural Press. The book is an amazing resource if you have TCKs and haven't already read and memorized everything in it!
We've been using the RAFT model during this transition. RAFT stands for:
Reconciliation
Affirmation
Farewells
Think Destination
I can summarize on my own, but since my own copy of TCK is currently packed in a box in our garage awaiting our journey back to Missouri, I will instead point to this great blog from another Member Care worker in Japan who summarizes each step very well.
As we've been working through RAFT for this transition, I was most confused by the "Think Destination" step. I understand that we're leaving Canada and that we need to tie up loose ends here. But it's hard to think about whether we're preparing ourselves for Missouri or for Tanzania. Will our RAFT last through 3 (or so) months of transitions? Or do we build two (or more!) different RAFTs? We've done a bit of both, but I expect that may be more confusing than it needs to be. Surely this isn't an uncommon thing, so if anyone has any ideas, we're very open to them!
Maybe I need to develop a HOUSE-BOAT model...
-JLR
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