The Dunbar family consist of Neill and Rebekah and their three chil­dren — Jonathan, Aaron and Emily. They serve in Church min­istry and dis­ciple­ship in Phnom Penh, Cam­bodia. We caught up with them for an inter­view during their recent visit back to New Zealand.

When the Dunbars moved to Phnom Penh, Emily was three. She is almost eleven now. And, more and more, she has talked about calling Cam­bodia home just as much as New Zealand. 

“She has put that into sen­tences every so often without real­ising it,” Rebekah says. The boys, Jonathan, who is sixteen, and Aaron, thir­teen, are more split. They were old enough when they left New Zealand to carry it with them. They still hold both. But they have spent so much of their lives in Cam­bodia now that it has become normal too. They have friends there. They have a life there. They have a school they want to get back to. 

This is the daily lived reality of what missiologists call “A third culture kid”. As Rebekah puts it, “you’re not quite from one place or the other. You’re just in between.”

For the chil­dren of Mission Part­ners, in-between is not a phase. It is the whole shape of their child­hood. They get the New Zealand summers, the cousins, the grass, the beach, the con­veni­ences. They get tuk-tuk-delivered coffees and a Buddhist city and an inter­na­tional school and friends from a dozen coun­tries. And they get the slow ache of not being fully native to either place. 

Emily’s wish, when she is in New Zealand, is unanswer­able: she wishes all her Cam­bod­ian friends were here too. 

The chal­lenges of Global Mission 

Serving in Cam­bodia for the Dunbar family is not dif­fi­cult in the ways you might expect. Phnom Penh, where they live, is a modern city. The Dunbars have air con­di­tion­ing, a school they trust, health­care they can access, banking that mostly works from a phone.  

“We don’t feel unsafe there,” Rebekah says. “We don’t feel we’re putting the kids in any overly chal­len­ging situ­ations.” 

The quieter things are what need watch­ing. The hidden weight of being a child between worlds. Anxiety that doesn’t announce itself. Stress that wears a dif­fer­ent face in a kid than it does in an adult.

“I always ask for prayer for the kids, and prayer for us as parents,” Neill says, “being dis­cern­ing on how they’re coping with this trans­ition. Anxiety can show up in dif­fer­ent ways.” 

Rebekah, herself a mis­sion­ary kid, brings a longer view.  

“When we’re going around groups, I always pray for dis­cern­ment as parents and wisdom as parents, that we can look after them in a way which is under­stood for them.” 

She remembers, from her own childhood, what it was like. There is a richness her own kids get from a wider world. There is also a frustration that comes with having a wider world than the people around you.

“When you’re younger, you can get quite frus­trated with people and think ‘You just don’t get it. You can’t see.’”  

The line you don’t cross 

There is one line in mission-family life that the Dunbars are clear about. Their kids are not to be sac­ri­ficed for the work. 

“For chil­dren of people in min­istry, and chil­dren of mis­sion­ar­ies,” Rebekah says, “they need to feel like they’re not being sac­ri­ficed. Whether it’s real or not. Because some­times it does happen that the parents just totally devote them­selves and really neglect their chil­dren and the children’s well-being.” 

This is not unique to mission fam­il­ies. It can happen to a Pastor’s family in sub­urban Auck­land. It can happen to anyone whose calling becomes louder than their house­hold. But the mission field can hide it. The work feels import­ant. The visa is short. The need is every­where. It is easy to tell your­self that the family will be fine. The Dunbars have tried to refuse this trade.  

“The way that we do family, the way that we raise our children and interact with them has never changed,” Rebekah says. “Right from when they’re born. They’ve experienced a continuity. We haven’t changed anything like that just because we’ve moved location. That’s enormously comforting, and gives them that security.” 

Faith­ful, well-adjus­ted, com­pet­ent 

We asked the Dunbars what they hope for the kids in ten years, when Jonathan will be twenty-six, Aaron twenty-three, and Emily twenty-one.  

“The number one pri­or­ity for your child is that they’re a faith­ful fol­lower of Christ,” Rebekah said. “Everything else falls behind that. I would hope that they’re also com­pet­ent and well-adjus­ted young adults, that they’re able to look after them­selves and poten­tially look after other people.” 

In the mean­time, Emily, almost eleven, is keen to get back to her friends in Cam­bodia. She some­times calls Cam­bodia home. Her parents notice, and they don’t correct her. Because she’s right. For a third culture kid, Cam­bodia is home. That is the life of a family par­ti­cip­at­ing in Global Mission. 

Would you or your church con­sider sup­port­ing the Dunbars? You can do so here — https://​www​.nzcms​.org​.nz/​o​u​r​-​p​e​o​p​l​e​/​m​i​s​s​i​o​n​-​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​/​n​e​i​l​l​-​a​n​d​-​r​e​b​e​k​a​h​-​d​u​n​b​ar/