The role of bicultural people in the missio Dei: Creating a model from bicultural Bible characters

Most models of missions assume a monocultural person encounters another monocultural environment when they begin mission work, but in a globalizing world, more people grow up with sustained engagement in multiple cultural settings before their formal ministry begins. People with mixed and multiple identities include adoptees, immigrants, refugees, children of intercultural marriages, people who schooled in a different setting, and children of diplomats, missionaries, military parents, or international businesspeople. In order to form a model for what characterizes the role of bicultural people in the missio Dei, this article surveys the biblical examples of Joseph, Moses, Daniel, Esther, and Paul. These people encountered multiple cultures before the age of 18, and later ministered in cross-cultural or hybrid settings. Drawing from Scripture, commentaries, and missiological literature, this article finds that bicultural people in the Bible share four characteristics: (1) They identify with more than one culture as a result of circumstances outside their control, lacking full awareness of the missional purposes of cultural adaptation. (2) They experience rejection from at least one culture because they are seen as different. (3) Despite this, they continue to identify with these cultures. (4) Their missional purpose is fully realized when they assume a mediator role that involves communicating between parties and sometimes securing benefits for each side.

The Experience of Families Separated by Military Deployment

The conflicts in Iraq (Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn) and Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) have resulted in the deployment of more than 2.6 million service members since 2001. Almost half of these service members had children at the time of deployment, and almost half experienced multiple deployments. Separations in the context of danger pose unique challenges for parenting at a distance, including civilian parental mental health problems that are in turn associated with disruptions in parenting and family relationships and increased mental health symptoms in children. Using an ecological framework, this chapter reviews the impact that more than a decade of war has had on children and their parents, identifying risk and protective factors in the context of parental deployment. Opportunities to maintain parenting during deployments across developmental stages for children are discussed, including the role of family-level programs and family services to support military parents and children.