Africa Lives in My Soul: Responses to an African Childhood

How do missionary kids really feel about growing up in Africa? This heartfelt book exposes their raw feelings about their childhoods in Angola and Congo from the 1930s to the 1960s. Variously called third culture kids, global nomads,or MKs, we share an overwhelming love for Africa along with a lifelong sense of not belonging in the countries of our parents.This book is based on a survey of adult "missionary kids" who grew up in Angola and Congo from the 1930s to the 1960s. Ninety people willingly wrote long responses to my questions, pouring out their joys and sorrows. Assimilating our childhood experiences can be a lifelong project. When few Americans understand what we went through, the relief of spilling it out to me, a stranger, was cathartic. As I received the responses, parts of my childhood that I had hidden or repressed came flooding back. I reclaimed Africa and my childhood. These responses gave me the courage to write my memoir, At Home Abroad: An American Girl in Africa.