Re-Entry Retreat

A safe space for returning missionaries and TCKs to be heard, build friendships and find support

3 Tracks - Adult, Youth and Children

3 different programs design for the different issues and challenges each age group faces upon returning from the mission field

Re-Entry Retreat

A time to RECALL, RESTORE and RELAUNCH

Supporting Returning Missionaries and their families

You are not alone in this journey, come hear from other veteran Singaporean missionaries and network with fellow returning missionaries

Previous slide

Next slide

Organised by

Organised in collaboration with TCK Connection (formerly known as TCK Care Fellowship) and member care staff from various Missions Agencies in SIngapore, this annual Re-Entry Retreat is a stay-in, 1 night 2 day program designed to facilitate returning Missionaries, their teenagers and children through a series of sessions to process the challenges in transition they face when returning from the mission field.

Who should attend?

Retiring Missionaries
Families Returning Due to Children’s Education Needs
Missionaries returning to be care givers of Ageing Parents
TCK Youths returning to Educational needs or to enter University
Missionaries returning for Home Assignment or Furlough
Christian Professional returning from Overseas Posting of 2 yrs and more.

What to expect?

One on One / Couple / Youth and Child Debriefing
Facing Road Blocks
Grief and Loss
Transition Bridge
TCK Education
Financial Planing
Flourishing Forward
Caring for Aging Parents
and other relevant topics

Where is it held?

OMF Guest Homes at 2, Cluny Road, Singapore 259570

When is it held?

2023 – 9th to 10th September
2024 – 31st August to 1 September

Your Support is Needed.

We try to keep this retreat affordable for returning missionaries and their families. However, with increasing cost over the years, it has become very challenging to maintain a low fee. Would you prayerfully consider to donate to the running of this retreat annually so that missionaries and their TCK teens and children can be better supported in their transition back.

DONATE

Resources for Returning Missionaries and TCKs

Website on Third Culture Kids & Adults

Thriving in a liminal space

By Esther Tan

https://www.thirdcultureliminal.com/

This website is created to connect people who are interested in teaching, learning, discussing or researching about living and thriving in a life filled with cross-cultural navigations and transitions. This website aims to be helpful for anyone who might be a Third culture kid or adult, or a cross-culture kid or adult, or just someone who is interested in these conversations. This website will feature more videos, resources and authentic stories from TCK/TCA gurus, TCK/TCA researchers, or TCKs/TCAs, with hopes of providing more open spaces eventually for those who are Eastern, Southern, South-East Asian, or who have lived in East, South, and South-East Asia.

The Grief Tower: A Practical Guide to Processing Grief with Third Culture Kids Kindle Edition

By Lauren Wells

https://www.amazon.com/Grief-Tower-Practical-Processing-Culture-ebook/dp/B08TRWY12R

Children who grow up outside of their parent’s passport country, Third Culture Kids (TCKs), experience a significant number of losses, grief-inducing experiences, and traumas during their developmental years. These events stack up like blocks on a tower throughout the life of the TCK, creating what Lauren Wells has coined the Grief Tower. If it continues to stack without these experiences being processed, a TCK’s Grief Tower is likely to crash in their early adulthood. But is this avoidable? Can parents and caregivers provide care that prevents the tower from stacking too high in the first place? The answer is yes, and this practical resource is full of tools for helping the TCKs we love to process their grief.

Original Song "Foreign"

By Zoe Nicole Lee

TCK who return from Cambodia in 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA-9laB5npc

Third Culture Kids are often misunderstood. When asked about how they feel about “returning home”, many of them cannot respond with the expected joy or enthusiasm that friends and family assume they should have when returning from the mission field. This song expresses the thoughts and reflections of a TCK who left when she was 7 years old, only to return at 17, but feeling like the sight and sounds she observes around her in the country she was born in, being foreign and unfamiliar.

Past Re-Entry Retreats

Re-Entry Retreat 2024

We celebrated 10 years of running RR. Three of the pioneers of this ministry are still actively volunteer each year to serve returning missionaries and their families.

Some of the Families who attended the 1st RR in 2014

Children's track. Our Children's facilitators plan activities to provide a safe space for children TCKs to process their grief and losses.

Re-Entry Retreat 2023

REPORT: 9th Edition-2022 RE-ENTRY RETREAT

We could finally resume back to our 2D 1N Retreat at OMF Guest Homes. It was a lovely time of sharing and making new friends.

REPORT: 5th Edition-2018 RE-ENTRY RETREAT

Every Re-Entry retreat brings in a new dimension. In this retreat, there were more than 70 in attendance – with 32 adults and 18 TCKs being first timers at such a retreat. Although many were meeting each other for the first time, yet within the next few hours, friendships were being formed and a relaxed atmosphere permeated with very personal anecdotes of each person’s experiences being shared openly. We thanked God that through very open sharing by those facilitating, others just followed suit, sharing their struggles as well as the challenges in coming back to Singapore. We trust that those who came will be encouraged, learned a little more on resettling and for those, with kids, excel in all fronts as they settle into this little Red Dot.

REPORT: 4th Edition-2017 RE-ENTRY RETREAT

More than 20 adults and 10 TCKs joined us for the first time on 30/9-1/10 weekend with around 20 other helpers coming to make this a memorable retreat for those who returned from cross-cultural work. Many have attested to the profitable sessions as well as the camaraderie spirit since all have gone through similar experiences. This yearly retreat is a special event for those who returned back to Singapore.

Here are some of their expressions:

“Able to understand the state that I am in.”

“To know how TCK go through the integration in the host country.”

“Thank God for having different discussions & sharings of personal lives and ministries out on the field and good speakers for each session.”

“New inspiration for another direction with confidence.”

REPORT: 3rd Edition of RE-ENTRY RETREAT: 15-16 Oct 2016 Weekend

The turnout for this 3rd Re-Entry Retreat, organised by ACTI, TCK Care Fellowship and other mission agencies was the biggest, with 65 adults and TCKs along with the facilitators. Most of them have settled back into Singapore and many of them could easily relate to each other although they do not know each other.

The TCKs, (30 of them) have a separate program which helped them through in their adjustment back into Singapore society. The teens led all of us in a time of worship and we are so encouraged to see them serving the Lord through worship, using their musical gifts!